About

Java is one of the best known programming languages in the world. Since it first appearance in 1995, it has come to dominate enterprise software development and a major part of the mobile application market, as it is the language Android applications are written in.

Unlike interpreted or compiled languages, Java runs in the Java Virtual Machine (JVM), which guarantees that, once written, a Java-program will run on any platform supported by the JVM without further changes.

Editions

Java SE

Java SE — Standard Edition — is the base platform for programming in Java. It is used for development and deployment of cross-platform code for desktop and server environments. One of the best-known implementations of Java SE is Oracle's Java Development Kit (JDK).

Java EE

Java EE — Enterprise Edition — is a rich enterprise software platform, which includes all the classes of Java SE plus several others, which are more useful for programs running on servers. Some of those are APIs for ORM, distributed and multi-tier architectures, and web services.

Java ME

Java ME — Micro Edition — is the platform for developing portable code for embedded and some mobile devices (micro-controllers, sensors, gateways, PDAs, printers, mobile phones, etc.).

Java for Android

Despite the fact that Android does not use established Java standards, i.e. Java SE and ME, which prevents compatibility between Android apps and Java SE/ME apps, Java is syntactically and semantically nonetheless tha language of choice for the Android platform.

With the Android platform holding a market share of almost 90%, this means that Java knowledge can make your application available to 9/10 people that use smart devices.

Technology

The syntax of Java is largely influenced by C++. However, Java is built as almost exclusively an object-oriented language. All data items, except primitives, are objects.

Java does not support operator overloading or multiple inheritance for classes, though the latter is supported for interfaces.

Due to its use of a virtual machine, Java programs are slower than e.g. those written in C++, but their speed increased significantly over the years. Some microcontrollers even support running Java programs in a hardware instead of software JVM for an even higher level of performance.

Java has an automatic garbage collector, which frees memory once objects are no longer in use, i.e. there are no more references to them being held.

There is no C-style pointer arithmetic in Java.

Conclusion

Java is one of the most thoroughly tested and proven programming languages out there today. It may require a bit of an overhead to get things rolling, but that attention to detail is what makes it shine once programs grow to enterprise proportions. Thus, it may not be the best choice for smaller projects, but there are few worthy competitors at the level of giant applications that require top-notch reliability. If you have big plans, you really should consider using Java to make them come true. With the help of our Java experts, you will get there quickly, safely, and efficiently.