What is Java?

Java is a computing platform for application development and an object-oriented, Class-based and Concurrent programming language which means many statements can be executed at the same time instead of sequentially executing it. It can run on all platforms and free to access.

The following are important points:

• Java is class-based and object-oriented.
• It is platform-independent that means java code can be compiled on any operating system and made to run on the same or any other operating system.
• It supports concurrency, which means multiple processes can execute the code at the same time. Many java programming statements can be executed together instead of executing them in one by one in sequence.

Why Do We Use Java?

Since its evolution, It has continuously gained popularity in the market, and it is one of the most commonly used languages for developing applications today.

The following are the most important features:

• Simplicity: Java was developed keeping in mind the complexities in other programming languages like C or C++. It has made the developer’s life comparatively easy as java does not make use of pointers and has a build-in memory management system.
• Portability: As already covered, java source code can be developed and compiled on one machine and can be made to run on the same or any other operating system. Therefore a java program can be easily ported on any other machine, thus providing portability.
• Object-Oriented: In java, everything is treated as an object, and all the operations involved in application development are completed using these objects.
• Dynamic Capability: Applications developed using java can adapt them to changing execution environment. This is because this programming language has features like dynamic memory allocation in which the amount of memory allocated changes according to the environment, which in turn provides high performance.
• High Security: In terms of security, java is operated on byte code which is not readable in nature. It runs source code inside a secured sandbox and does not allow any external intervention. Therefore it allows developers to build tamper resilient and virus free applications, thus providing high security.
• Robust: Java is developed keeping in mind all possibilities, and therefore there is no existence of the error. It allows developing code that handles all possible errors. Also, it has a strong type checking that makes our source code robust.
• Multithreading: Java supports creating multiple threads for execution, thus providing high performance. Also, it supports the synchronization mechanism to maintain synchronization between different threads.
• Interpreted: The code is converted into byte code, which is interpreted by the java run time environment.
• Distributed: Java supports developing distributed applications. It provides features like Remote Method Invocation, through which a program can communicate with another program present in the remote machines through the network and generates the desired output.
• Performance: Java provides high performance as it uses bytecode, which can be translated into machine code with ease and high speed. It has Just in time compiler through which high performance is achieved.

Because of all the above-explained features, java is commonly used and popular for application development.

What Can We Do with Java?

Now we will see different applications. Here are some of the common domains in which it is used:

1. Banking and Financial Domain: The banking domain makes use of java for handling transactions. It performs exceptionally well while efficiently handling millions of transactions.

2. Information Technology: Using java following types of applications can be developed:

• Web Application Development: This refers to website development. In web application development, java provides server-side technologies that receive data from front end user interfaces and provide data to the back end logical processing layer, and after processing, data is returned to the front end through these server-side technologies.

The following are some server-side technologies provided:

• Spring Framework
• Spring Boot

Apart from server-side technologies, one of the most commonly used application server, apache tomcat, is developed using java.

• Android Application Development: Java is also used for the development of android applications. Android applications are developed using java API.
• Desktop Applications: It is also used to develop standalone desktop applications. It has Abstract Windowing Toolkit (AWT) to allow GUI development.
• Enterprise Applications: It provides Java Enterprise Edition, which is popular for developing enterprise applications. Applications developed using Java EE are mainly business applications that are scalable, reliable, large scale, multi-tier, and secure applications.
• cientific Applications: Applications involving scientific and mathematical calculations can be developed using Java as the core programming language. Also, it is preferred for performing scientific analysis on huge data.
• Big Data: Map-reduce framework for handling big data processing is written in java.
• Cloud Applications: It provides features that can be used to build applications used in Saas, Paas and Iaas cloud development. It helps companies to develop their applications remotely or serve them to share their data or information with others over the network.
• Gaming Applications: It has the support of one of the most popular 3D-Engine, jMonkeyEngine, which can be used to design three-dimensional games.

3. Stock Market: It is used for developing algorithms involving stock market analysis.
4. Retail: It is also used in developing billing applications used in malls, shops, and other places.

Conclusion

From the above discussion, we have a clear understanding of the features and different applications of java. Also, we have seen some code examples showing the creation of the java class, declaration of the main method, creation of methods, object creation and calling java methods through the object.