Java
Java
Java, not to be confused with Javascript, was originally developed by James Gosling, a Canadian computer scientist at Sun Microsystems, and released in May 1995. There are many virtual machines that can be used to run java code on, but the official and most common reference orientation is the OpenJDK JVM which is free open-source software and used by most developers and is the default JVM for almost all Linux distributions. As of March 2022 Java 18 is the latest version, but Java 17, 11 and 8 are all still currently supported and commonly seen versions.
Java is a general purpose programming language, meaning that you can build a wide range of applications with Java. However, what separates from other general-purpose programming languages is the few main principles it was designed with. First, Java is an object oriented programming language. It was also designed to be extremely robust, which means it handles errors and memory very well – a Java program won’t crash very easily. Additionally, it was designed to be a secure language, in that users of a Java program can’t access aspects of the program that they were designed to access, such as sensitive data or information. Another strength of Java is that it runs on a virtual machine, which translates Java code to be runnable on that machine. This means that a Java program can be run on any computer system that has a java virtual machine downloaded. Additionally, this makes Java code extremely portable – code written on one system can be run on another. Java is also an extremely high performance language, compiling and running programs quicker than many other languages. Another important feature of Java is that it is threaded, which speeds up how fast a program is.
Java is a very popular programming language that is used for many purposes, but Java’s defining feature is that it is object oriented, so a programmer must learn the object-oriented programming style in order to learn Java. This may take some time to understand at first, but this style of programming is extremely common, very versatile, and one that most programmers will need to learn and use at some point and thus is a useful skill to have. However, Java’s syntax is relatively simple compared to other programming languages, so learning it is very doable for beginners. Furthermore, if you are 1) looking to write a program that deals with sensitive data, 2) concerned with having your program run as quickly as possible, and/or 3) having your program run on any computer system without crashing, then Java is a good choice for you. Because of its strengths, Java is commonly used for the following applications: Web, GUI, Mobile, Scientific Computing, and Data Analysis.