Features of Java Programming language – Learn Why Java Is Important

Java programming language is still one of the most popular developing languages all over the world. It is useful to a lot of top MNC’s and startups to power their products. Even now, Java has a lot of discussion threads open up in stack exchange and stack overflow. 

Features of Java

Java Programming Language has many features that make it so much famous in the IT industry. Let us see the Features of Java in detail below:

1. Simple

Java is one of the simplest programming languages to learn and master to grasp object-oriented learning.

For experienced developers, there was once a problem of unreferenced objects clogging up the memory. With Java, that problem is now solved as Java was one of the first programming languages to bring in the concept of Automatic Garbage Collection.

When Java came into being, many developers were already working in the then programming language C++. The Java syntax is very similar to the C++ syntax to tackle the migration problem, which made it easier for developers to migrate from C++ to Java.

2. Object-Oriented Programming Language

This is one of the primary reasons why Java is so popular amongst developers. Java strictly conforms to the rules of Object Oriented Programming or OOP. Object-oriented development includes concepts of Objects and Classes and many more. This enables developers to have a wide variety of options for designing their software.

Java also supports

• Polymorphism
• Inheritance
• Abstraction
• Encapsulation

3. Platform-Independent

Being platform-independent is essential for a programming language as the developer circles range from windows users to Linux users. Java does that by having the concept of a Java Virtual Machine. It is also known as a write-once run anywhere (WORA). This is where it beats the other programming languages by a considerable mark. Previously all programming languages generated machine-level code for the particular machine environment. Hence it was tough for developers to collaborate if they were using different settings to code the same software.

This is where Java came in with a software-oriented platform that had two components, namely an API and a Runtime Environment.

If we break the discussion to the basics, what Java does is as soon as the program compiles, the compiler generates bytecode for that specific program.

Different operating systems such as MAC or Linux can then run the bytecode, making it very flexible.

4. Secure Language

Security is everybody’s prime concern in today’s world. Java promises security by implementing some unique features like

It completely obliterates the use of explicit pointers.

Unlike other languages, Java runs all of its programs inside a sandbox of its own called the Java Virtual Machine so that any errors or crashes do not harm the external operating system, thus making it secure and efficient at the same time. The ClassLoader dynamically allocates the classes defined in the program to the Java Runtime environment by separating the local types to the machine and those imported from other network sources.

Sometimes malicious code can try to access objects outside their permission domains. The bytecode verifier prevents this by obliterating such code.

Java can determine what resources a particular class can access, such as reading from a disk and writing data to memory. It does so with the help of a security manager.

5. Think Robustness, Think Java

Java is a robust language. Does it mean it can lift mountains? Metaphorically, yes. It does so by implementing some exciting features from which a few are as follows:

a. Java uses robust memory management techniques so that there is no space for improper memory assignment during a program’s running.

b. Malicious code can use explicit pointers to access code outside their allowance or restricted, sensitive data. Hence Java has no support for tips.

c. The constant problem of unreferenced objects clogging the memory is gone. Earlier, this massive problem of unreferenced objects was still being in the memory, which led to the wastage of space. But with the advent of Java’s garbage collector, the pain fades away as it looks through the heap memory and discards the objects which are not used or not referenced anymore by the program.

d. “I ran into an error, and my compiler closed immediately” was a massive problem for developers who were developing applications before the advent of a feature called Error Handling. Java implemented the concept and allowed users to execute and do custom actions when the program crashed or reported an error.

6. Architecture Neutral

Primitive languages were not neutral to the architecture of development environments. For example, C had different sizes of datatypes for 32 bit systems and 64 bit systems. So did several other languages too.

Java decided to be neutral to all platforms, which dramatically increased collaboration efficiency. Java code does not compile its code to platform-specific byte code, but it’s compiled into platform-independent bytecode. This means that the generated class file can now run on different machines running different environments, other operating systems with the only requirement of a Java Virtual Machine to be present in each device. This makes Java an architecturally flexible and robust programming language.

7. High Performance

Java’s bytecode makes it a lot faster than other languages because of its innate similarity to native code. Native code is processor-specific, i.e., it has to be compiled to run with a specific processor, like Intel’s x86 class processor.

Microsoft’s Intermediate language and Java Bytecode have native code to execute an in-time compiler for faster Performance. However,

Java is an interpreted language, which means that it’s slower than compiled languages like C and C++.

Java is faster than a lot of other languages like python. However, this is an abstract concept as python also takes less time to develop due to the syntax and easily fabricated code design.

8. Multithreaded Programming language

Java supports multithreaded programming, i.e., it supports multiple operations running at the same time. We can think of a thread as an individual operation or parts of the program using the processor. It increases the performance by decreasing the development time needed for a particular software.

The coding for a particular software becomes streamlined. The maintenance cost drops. However, all of these processes share the same memory slots as individual processes use the memory efficiently.

As a multiprocessor can effectively execute multiple threads simultaneously, multiprogramming is a boon to the developer community. Java manages to cover all these points, which makes it a super-efficient language.

9. Distributed Language

Java isn’t distributed as such when it’s compared to the exact definition of a distributed system. It can be used to transfer and execute programs by remote computers on the local machines from the internet. It supports third-party libraries to create and support web services. It’s a rule-based language model. Java loads/invokes the objects or functions only when the program needs it. Java finalizes gathering instructions during runtime. Ex- Runtime Polymorphism, i.e., function overriding.

RMI and EJB are some of the applications which find use in distributed applications. RMI stands for Remote Method Invocation. As the name suggests, it can invoke other methods running in other JVM’s. It uses a stub and a skeleton for communication. However, EJB stands for Enterprise Java Bean. It helps in developing scalable, secure, and robust applications.

10. Dynamic Nature

It’s a requirement based language model. Classes are not loaded all at once. They jump into action only when an invoke operation executes or some data about the course is needed in the memory. Java finalizes gathering instructions during runtime. Ex- Runtime Polymorphism, i.e., function overriding.

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