Introduction to Java

What is Java?

Java is a high-level, class-based, object-oriented programming language that is designed to have as few implementation dependencies as possible. 

It is a general-purpose programming language intended to let programmers write once, and run anywhere meaning that compiled Java code can run on all platforms that support Java without the need to recompile.

Brief History of Java

Java was developed by Sun Microsystems (which is now the subsidiary of Oracle) in the year 1995. James Gosling is known as the father of Java. 
Initially, it was named Oak. Since Oak was already a registered company, James Gosling and his team changed the name to Java.

Features of Java

Simple - Java is easy to learn and its syntax is quite simple, clean, and easy to understand.

Secure - Java program always runs in Java runtime environment with almost null interaction with system OS, hence it is more secure.

Robust - Java is robust because it utilizes strong memory management. There is an absence of pointers that bypasses security dilemmas. There is automatic garbage collection in Java which runs on the Java Virtual Machine to eliminate objects which are not being accepted by a Java application anymore.

Object Oriented - In java, everything is an object which has some data and behavior.

Platform Independence - Unlike other programming languages such as C, C++, etc which are compiled into platform-specific machines. Java is guaranteed to be a write-once, run-anywhere language.

High Performance - Java is an interpreted language, so it will never be as fast as a compiled language like C or C++. But, Java enables high performance with the use of the Just-In-Time(JIT) compiler.

Distributed - Java is also a distributed language. Programs can be designed to run on computer networks. Java has a special class library for communicating using TCP/IP protocols.