09/03/2016

AbouttheJavaTechnology(TheJavaTutorials>GettingStarted>TheJavaTechnologyPhenomenon)

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TheJavaTutorials
Trail:GettingStarted
Lesson:TheJavaTechnologyPhenomenon

AbouttheJavaTechnology
Javatechnologyisbothaprogramminglanguageandaplatform.

TheJavaProgrammingLanguage
TheJavaprogramminglanguageisahighlevellanguagethatcanbecharacterizedbyallofthefollowingbuzzwords:

Simple
Objectoriented
Distributed
Multithreaded
Dynamic

Architectureneutral
Portable
Highperformance
Robust
Secure

EachoftheprecedingbuzzwordsisexplainedinTheJavaLanguageEnvironment,awhitepaperwrittenbyJamesGoslingandHenryMcGilton.
IntheJavaprogramminglanguage,allsourcecodeisfirstwritteninplaintextfilesendingwiththe.javaextension.Thosesourcefilesarethen
compiledinto.classfilesbythejavaccompiler.A.classfiledoesnotcontaincodethatisnativetoyourprocessoritinsteadcontains
bytecodesthemachinelanguageoftheJavaVirtualMachine1(JavaVM).Thejavalaunchertoolthenrunsyourapplicationwithaninstanceof
theJavaVirtualMachine.

Anoverviewofthesoftwaredevelopmentprocess.
BecausetheJavaVMisavailableonmanydifferentoperatingsystems,thesame.classfilesarecapableofrunningonMicrosoftWindows,the
SolarisOperatingSystem(SolarisOS),Linux,orMacOS.Somevirtualmachines,suchastheJavaSEHotSpotataGlance,performadditional
stepsatruntimetogiveyourapplicationaperformanceboost.Thisincludesvarioustaskssuchasfindingperformancebottlenecksandrecompiling(to
nativecode)frequentlyusedsectionsofcode.

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AbouttheJavaTechnology(TheJavaTutorials>GettingStarted>TheJavaTechnologyPhenomenon)

ThroughtheJavaVM,thesameapplicationiscapableofrunningonmultipleplatforms.

TheJavaPlatform
Aplatformisthehardwareorsoftwareenvironmentinwhichaprogramruns.We'vealreadymentionedsomeofthemostpopularplatformslike
MicrosoftWindows,Linux,SolarisOS,andMacOS.Mostplatformscanbedescribedasacombinationoftheoperatingsystemandunderlying
hardware.TheJavaplatformdiffersfrommostotherplatformsinthatit'sasoftwareonlyplatformthatrunsontopofotherhardwarebasedplatforms.
TheJavaplatformhastwocomponents:
TheJavaVirtualMachine
TheJavaApplicationProgrammingInterface(API)
You'vealreadybeenintroducedtotheJavaVirtualMachineit'sthebasefortheJavaplatformandisportedontovarioushardwarebasedplatforms.
TheAPIisalargecollectionofreadymadesoftwarecomponentsthatprovidemanyusefulcapabilities.Itisgroupedintolibrariesofrelatedclasses
andinterfacestheselibrariesareknownaspackages.Thenextsection,WhatCanJavaTechnologyDo?highlightssomeofthefunctionalityprovided
bytheAPI.

TheAPIandJavaVirtualMachineinsulatetheprogramfromtheunderlyinghardware.
Asaplatformindependentenvironment,theJavaplatformcanbeabitslowerthannativecode.However,advancesincompilerandvirtualmachine
technologiesarebringingperformanceclosetothatofnativecodewithoutthreateningportability.
Theterms"JavaVirtualMachine"and"JVM"meanaVirtualMachinefortheJavaplatform.

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