· Simple
· Secure
· Portable
· Object-oriented
· Robust
· Multithreaded
· Architecture-neutral
· Interpreted
· High performance
· Distributed
· Dynamic
Two of these buzzwords have already been discussed: secure and portable. Let's
examine what each of the others implies.
Simple
Java was designed to be easy for the professional programmer to learn and use effectively.
Assuming that you have some programming experience, you will not find Java hard to master.
If you already understand the basic concepts of object-oriented programming, learning Java
will be even easier. Best of all, if you are an experienced C++ programmer, moving to Java will
require very little effort. Because Java inherits the C/C++ syntax and many of the
object-oriented features of C++, most programmers have little trouble learning Java.
Object-Oriented
Although influenced by its predecessors, Java was not designed to be source-code compatible
with any other language. This allowed the Java team the freedom to design with a blank
slate. One outcome of this was a clean, usable, pragmatic approach to objects. Borrowing
liberally from many seminal object-software environments of the last few decades, Java
manages to strike a balance between the purist's "everything is an object" paradigm and
the pragmatist's "stay out of my way" model. The object model in Java is simple and easy
to extend, while primitive types, such as integers, are kept as high-performance nonobjects.
Robust
The multiplatformed environment of the Web places extraordinary demands on a program,
because the program must execute reliably in a variety of systems. Thus, the ability to create
robust programs was given a high priority in the design of Java. To gain reliability, Java
restricts you in a few key areas to force you to find your mistakes early in program
development. At the same time, Java frees you from having to worry about many of the
most common causes of programming errors. Because Java is a strictly typed language, it
checks your code at compile time. However, it also checks your code at run time. Many
hard-to-track-down bugs that often turn up in hard-to-reproduce run-time situations are
simply impossible to create in Java. Knowing that what you have written will behave in a
predictable way under diverse conditions is a key feature of Java.
Search WWH :
Custom Search
Previous Page
Java SE 6 Topic Index
Next Page
Java SE 6 Bookmarks
Home