Object Oriented Programming – JAVA LANGUAGE
JAVA LANGUAGE
History of Java Programming Language
Java is an Object-Oriented programming language developed by James Gosling in the
early 1990s. The team initiated this project to develop a language for digital devices such as
set-top boxes, television, etc. Originally C++ was considered to be used in the project but the
idea was rejected for several reasons(For instance C++ required more memory). Gosling
endeavoured to alter and expand C++ however before long surrendered that for making
another stage called Green. James Gosling and his team called their project “Greentalk” and
its file extension was .gt and later became to known as “OAK”.
Why “Oak”?
The name Oak was used by Gosling after an oak tree that remained outside his office.
Also, Oak is an image of solidarity and picked as a national tree of numerous nations like the
U.S.A., France, Germany, Romania, etc. But they had to later rename it as “JAVA” as it was
already a trademark by Oak Technologies.
“JAVA”
Gosling and his team did a brainstorm session and after the session, they
came up with several names such as JAVA, DNA, SILK, RUBY, etc.
Java name was decided after much discussion since it was so unique. The name Java
originates from a sort of espresso bean, Java. Gosling came up with this name while having a
coffee near his office. Java was created on the principles like Robust, Portable, Platform
Independent, High Performance, Multithread, etc. and was called one of the Ten Best
Products of 1995 by the TIME MAGAZINE.
Currently, Java is used in internet programming, mobile devices, games, e-business
solutions, etc. The Java language has experienced a few changes since JDK 1.0 just as various
augmentations of classes and packages to the standard library. In Addition to the language
changes, considerably more sensational changes have been made to the Java Class Library
throughout the years, which has developed from a couple of hundred classes in JDK 1.0 to
more than three thousand in J2SE 5.
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History of various Java versions:
RELEASE
VERSION DATE MAJOR CHANGES
JDK
Beta 1995
January The Very first version was released on January 23, 1996. The
JDK 1.0 1996 principal stable variant, JDK 1.0.2, is called Java 1.
Was released on February 19, 1997. There were many additions in
JDK 1.1 as compared to version 1.0 such as
A broad retooling of the AWT occasion show
February Inner classes added to the language
JavaBeans
JDK 1.1 1997 JDBC
RMI
“Play area” was the codename which was given to this form and
was released on 8th December 1998. Its real expansion included:
strictfp keyword
the Swing graphical API was coordinated into the centre
classes
December Sun’s JVM was outfitted with a JIT compiler out of the blue
Java module
J2SE 1.2 1998 Java IDL, an IDL usage for CORBA interoperability
Collections system
Codename- “KESTREL”
Release Date- 8th May 2000
Additions:
HotSpot JVM included
Java Naming and Directory Interface
JPDA
J2SE 1.3 May 2000 JavaSound
Synthetic proxy classes
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RELEASE
VERSION DATE MAJOR CHANGES
Codename- “Merlin”
Release Date- 6th February 2002
Additions: Library improvements
Regular expressions modelled after Perl regular expressions
The image I/O API for reading and writing images in formats
like JPEG and PNG
Integrated XML parser and XSLT processor (JAXP) (specified
in JSR 5 and JSR 63)
February
Preferences API (java.util.prefs)
Public Support and security updates for this version ended in
J2SE 1.4 2002
October 2008.
Codename- “Tiger”
Release Date- “30th September 2004”
Originally numbered as 1.5 which is still used as its internal
version. Added several new language features such as:
September for-each loop
Generics
J2SE 5.0 2004 Autoboxing
Var-args
Codename- “Mustang”
Released Date- 11th December 2006
Packaged with a database supervisor and encourages the
utilization of scripting languages with the JVM. Replaced the
name J2SE with ava SE and dropped the .0 from the version
number.
Additions:
JAVA SE December Upgrade of JAXB to version 2.0: Including integration of a
StAX parser.
6 2006 Support for pluggable annotations (JSR 269).
JDBC 4.0 support (JSR 221)
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RELEASE
VERSION DATE MAJOR CHANGES
Codename- “Dolphin”
Release Date- 7th July 2011
Added small language changes including strings in the switch. The
JVM was extended with support for dynamic languages.
Additions:
JAVA SE
Compressed 64-bit pointers.
7 July 2011 Binary Integer Literals.
Upstream updates to XML and Unicode.
Released Date- 18th March 2014
JAVA SE Language level support for lambda expressions and default
8 March 2014 methods and a new date and time API inspired by Joda Time.
Release Date: 21st September 2017
Project Jigsaw: designing and implementing a standard, a module
JAVA SE September system for the Java SE platform, and to apply that system to the
9 2017 platform itself and the JDK.
Released Date- 20th March
Addition:
Additional Unicode language-tag extensions
Root certificates
JAVA SE Thread-local handshakes
Heap allocation on alternative memory devices
10 March 2018 Remove the native-header generation tool – javah.
Consolidate the JDK forest into a single repository.
Released Date- 25th September, 2018
JAVA SE September
Additions-
11 2018
Dynamic class-file constants
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RELEASE
VERSION DATE MAJOR CHANGES
Epsilon: a no-op garbage collector
The local-variable syntax for lambda parameters
Low-overhead heap profiling
HTTP client (standard)
Transport Layer Security (TLS) 1.3
Flight recorder
Released Date- 19th March 2019
Additions-
Shenandoah: A Low-Pause-Time Garbage Collector
(Experimental)
Microbenchmark Suite
JAVA SE Switch Expressions (Preview)
JVM Constants API
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JAVA TECHNOLOGY
The Java Development Kit (JDK) is one of three core technology packages used in Java
programming, along with the JVM (Java Virtual Machine) and the JRE (Java Runtime
Environment). It's important to differentiate between these three technologies, as well as
understanding how they're connected:
The JVM is the Java platform component that executes programs.
The JRE is the on-disk part of Java that creates the JVM.
The JDK allows developers to create Java programs that can be executed and
run by the JVM and JRE.
Developers new to Java often confuse the Java Development Kit and the Java Runtime
Environment. The distinction is that the JDK is a package of tools for developing Java-based
software, whereas the JRE is a package of tools for running Java code.
The JRE can be used as a standalone component to simply run Java programs, but it's
also part of the JDK. The JDK requires a JRE because running Java programs is part of
developing them.
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Figure 1 shows how the JDK fits into the Java application development lifecycle.
Used to
JDK Create a
Java
JVM
Program Compiled
Java
Java
Program
JRE Program Run
inside
Used to execute Java Program
Figure 1. High-level view of the JDK
Just as we did with my recent introduction to the Java Virtual Machine, let's consider the
technical and everyday definitions of the JDK:
Technical definition: The JDK is an implementation of the Java platform
specification, including compiler and class libraries.
Everyday definition: The JDK is a software package you download in order to
create Java-based applications.
The JDK & the Java compiler
In addition to the JRE, which is the environment used to run Java applications, every
JDK contains a Java compiler. The compiler is the software program capable of taking raw
.java files--which are plain text--and rendering them into executable .class files. We'll see the
compiler in action soon. First, I'll show you how to download and setup a JDK in your
development environment.
Features of Java
The primary objective of Java programming language creation was to make it
portable, simple and secure programming language. Apart from this, there are also some
excellent features which play an important role in the popularity of this language. The features
of Java are also known as java buzzwords.
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A list of most important features of Java language is given below.
Figure 2. Features of Java
1. Simple
2. Object-Oriented
3. Portable
4. Platform independent
5. Secured
6. Robust
7. Architecture neutral
8. Interpreted
9. High Performance
10. Multithreaded
11. Distributed
12. Dynamic
Simple
Java is very easy to learn, and its syntax is simple, clean and easy to understand.
According to Sun, Java language is a simple programming language because:
Java syntax is based on C++ (so easier for programmers to learn it after C++).
Java has removed many complicated and rarely-used features, for example,
explicit pointers, operator overloading, etc.
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There is no need to remove unreferenced objects because there is an Automatic
Garbage Collection in Java.
Object-oriented
Java is an object-oriented programming language. Everything in Java is an object.
Object-oriented means we organize our software as a combination of different types of
objects that incorporates both data and behavior.
Object-oriented programming (OOPs) is a methodology that simplifies software
development and maintenance by providing some rules.
Basic concepts of OOPs are:
1. Object
2. Class
3. Inheritance
4. Polymorphism
5. Abstraction
6. Encapsulation
Platform Independent
Figure 3. Platform Independent
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Java is platform independent because it is different from other languages like C, C++,
etc. which are compiled into platform specific machines while Java is a write once, run
anywhere language. A platform is the hardware or software environment in which a program
runs.
There are two types of platforms software-based and hardware-based. Java provides
a software-based platform.
The Java platform differs from most other platforms in the sense that it is a software-
based platform that runs on the top of other hardware-based platforms. It has two
components:
1. Runtime Environment
2. API(Application Programming Interface)
Java code can be run on multiple platforms, for example, Windows, Linux, Sun Solaris,
Mac/OS, etc. Java code is compiled by the compiler and converted into bytecode. This
bytecode is a platform-independent code because it can be run on multiple platforms, i.e.,
Write Once and Run Anywhere(WORA).
Secured
Java is best known for its security. With Java, we can develop virus-free systems. Java
is secured because:
No explicit pointer
Java Programs run inside a virtual machine sandbox
Figure 4. Virtual Machine Sandbox
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Classloader: Classloader in Java is a part of the Java Runtime Environment(JRE) which
is used to load Java classes into the Java Virtual Machine dynamically. It adds security
by separating the package for the classes of the local file system from those that are
imported from network sources.
Bytecode Verifier: It checks the code fragments for illegal code that can violate access
right to objects.
Security Manager: It determines what resources a class can access such as reading
and writing to the local disk.
Java language provides these securities by default. Some security can also be provided
by an application developer explicitly through SSL, JAAS, Cryptography, etc.
Robust
Robust simply means strong. Java is robust because:
It uses strong memory management.
There is a lack of pointers that avoids security problems.
There is automatic garbage collection in java which runs on the Java Virtual
Machine to get rid of objects which are not being used by a Java application
anymore.
There are exception handling and the type checking mechanism in Java. All these
points make Java robust.
Architecture-neutral
Java is architecture neutral because there are no implementation dependent
features, for example, the size of primitive types is fixed.
In C programming, int data type occupies 2 bytes of memory for 32-bit architecture
and 4 bytes of memory for 64-bit architecture. However, it occupies 4 bytes of memory for
both 32 and 64-bit architectures in Java.
Portable
Java is portable because it facilitates you to carry the Java bytecode to any platform.
It doesn't require any implementation.
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High-performance
Java is faster than other traditional interpreted programming languages because Java
bytecode is "close" to native code. It is still a little bit slower than a compiled language (e.g.,
C++). Java is an interpreted language that is why it is slower than compiled languages, e.g., C,
C++, etc.
Distributed
Java is distributed because it facilitates users to create distributed applications in Java.
RMI and EJB are used for creating distributed applications. This feature of Java makes us able
to access files by calling the methods from any machine on the internet.
Multi-threaded
A thread is like a separate program, executing concurrently. We can write Java
programs that deal with many tasks at once by defining multiple threads. The main advantage
of multi-threading is that it doesn't occupy memory for each thread. It shares a common
memory area. Threads are important for multi-media, Web applications, etc.
Dynamic
Java is a dynamic language. It supports dynamic loading of classes. It means classes
are loaded on demand. It also supports functions from its native languages, i.e., C and C++.
Java supports dynamic compilation and automatic memory management (garbage
collection).
HELLO WORLD APPLICATION
1. Write the source code: HelloWorld.java
public class HelloWorld{
public static void main( String args[] ){
System.out.println(“Hello world”);
}
}
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Figure 5. Hello World Program
2. Compile: javac HelloWorld.java
3. Run: java HelloWorld
Figure 6. Hello World Write, Compile, Run
Sources
Bhatnagar G. (n.d.). The Complete History of Java Programming Language
https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/the-complete-history-of-java-programming-language/
Features of Java
https://www.javatpoint.com/features-of-java
Tyson, M. (2018). What is Java?
https://www.javaworld.com/article/3296360/what-is-the-jdk-introduction-to-the-java-
development-kit.html
History of Java Programming Languages
https://www.freejavaguide.com/history.html
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