The IT realm never stays put resting even after some ground-breaking technology has just been unleashed on the global audience, leaving both professional developers and average users astonished at new vistas it opens before them. Then, enjoying the novelty for a couple of months, savvy programmers start searching for ways to improve and upgrade it to offer a more user-friendly or convenient for various applications version of what seemed the last word in the digital domain only yesterday.
However changeable in the high-tech industry’s preferences might be, some things remain rock-solid in their across-the-board employment by the entire IT community. And speaking of programming languages, Java is the indisputable established leader among its counterparts. Why is Java so popular? If we look at the genesis of this question, we’ll find the answer.
Advantages of Java: The rise of the titan
In the early 1990s, the IT community primarily relied on C++ as the principal language for their software development endeavors. However, not everyone liked its principles of operation and applicability, so Sun Microsystems embarked on the journey to enhance its portability and automation of memory management and make it more novice-friendly.
The brainchild was launched in 1992 as Oak, but it turned out to be a totally new language with object-oriented syntax, universally praised for its write-once-run-anywhere potential. Three years later, it was renamed to be known as Java ever since. Why Java was chosen as its name? It was picked out of dozens of other suggestions voiced in the meeting room where the developers gathered to discuss their progress.
Today, the evident benefits of Java, the unflagging support from its creators, and the active assistance of a broad user community have turned this language into a second-to-none ecosystem consisting of several tools.
- Java Development Kit. This is the core of the system used to write code once you have a specialized Notebook app installed on your computer.
- Integrated Development Environment. The collection of tools (such as Eclipse, NetBeans, and IntelliJ IDEA) included in it is meant to edit, compile, and run the code.
- Java Runtime Environment. The module contains a configuration tool, a Java Virtual Machine, and the Java Class Library that are highly instrumental in software distribution.
What is Java best used for? For building almost any software product you can think of. Being an all-terrain language, it suits both major operating systems (Android and iOS). Developers can use it to create mobile and web apps, games, sites, platforms, server networks, and other software in all spheres tamed by the digital revolution.
Given such ubiquity of Java, it is no wonder that there is high demand for outsourcers who are proficient in this language to accomplish various software Java-powered projects.
Ten reasons to cooperate with Java software outsourcing company from Ukraine
It may seem that Java’s peak of popularity is far in the past. Java has already been used for 26 years. Advanced programmers are curious about the latest technologies like Objective-C, Node.js, Dart, Go, etc. However, if you look at any job search results, you will see more job offers for Java developers than iOS ones. Here are ten solid reasons why Java dominates globally.
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Reason 1 – Java and corporations
Large corporations have criticized Java from the very start of its life cycle. That is because it wasn’t a success in building desktop applications. However, Java apps run pretty well on the Windows platform despite the braking.
Steve Jobs has never loved Java. Mac ignored all applications developed on Java, except Adobe. Probably, Steve was right because smartphones with iOS platforms work more smoothly than Android phones.
Regardless of all difficulties, Java grew by leaps and bounds to become suitable for creating desktop apps.
Reason 2 – JVM: Powerful traffic opportunities
Java Virtual Machine can easily manage hundreds of traffic. Many websites with high traffic use this ability. Java developer writes code on his laptop and then deploys an app on a powerful server.
The modern competitor of Java is Ruby. It has a clearer syntax similar to the live English language. Nevertheless, when Ruby developers need high efficiency, they go back to JRuby that runs over the JVM.
JVM was built and optimized for type-safe code with static context before long programmers understood that JVM could run Java written code. A compiler creates a correct Java bytecode, no matter what language it was written in.
Reason 3 – Custom Java development: First language
Java is a basic to study for Advanced Placement Computer Science exams designed for middle school students. Usually, Java becomes the first syntax that students learn. Those who continue studying computer science at colleges compare new languages with Java. Java. It’s one of the reasons why hiring offshore developers for the tasks related to the Java programming language is a lot easier.
Java has a lot of learning advantages. Most programmers find specifying data types boring and useless activity. However, it is a perfect way for beginners to understand how a computer is arranged. Current languages don’t use squiggly brackets, but they can help beginners understand the code inside a block.
Reason 4 – Cross-platform interoperability
Java wasn’t the first to build cross-platform applications, but it has become one of the dominating languages for those purposes. Indeed, it doesn’t mean that Java is suitable for building apps on various platforms. Companies working on Java technology create code on their computers and then deploy it on the intended platform, a server, or a phone.
A great variety of frameworks adds value to this programming language and allows developers to choose what they like most.
Reason 5 – Microchips embedded Java software
Java has never been popular for software development, but it succeeded greatly in the mobile apps market. Android is completely built with Java. According to a comparative study carried out by AndroidPub, Android devices are sold better than iOS designed. Here is a worldwide distribution chart as of 2017.
Reason 6 – Blu-Ray
Java was initially designed for TV receivers. Blu-Ray standard is built around Java. Those who want to add new content to Blu-Ray will need to use a Java compiler. With the help of Java, one can add additional functions and interactivity.
Reason 7 – Squiggle brackets work
Every block of Java code must be put in squiggly brackets. Simplifying changes in syntax doesn’t lead to simplifying the whole coding process. Squiggle brackets can help when your nesting level is too complicated. If your code looks like modern English, it doesn’t mean that it could be understood as easily as a typical English sentence.
Reason 8 – Groovy
If Java developers need clearer and simpler language, they can turn to Groovy. It is an accurate Java hack that allows calling Java libraries out of Groovy code.
Reason 9 – NoSQL
Once databases kept bulk information until NoSQL has been introduced. Developers have figured out that they could create their databases and adapt the code to their requirements. The majority of NoSQL was written in Java, for example, Lucene, Cassandra, HBase, ElasticSearch.
Reason 10 – Open source
Sun company was always a leader in the open-source community, but it hasn’t decided to make Java completely open. It hasn’t kept developers from writing many libraries and projects under open licenses. Apache, for example, keeps providing a lot of Java projects.
What is Java popular today?
Now Java release time has been shortened to six months instead of three years as it was earlier. Thus, this is why developers have to carefully monitor every change done throughout a whole year. The Java community managers will have an opportunity to decide whether to follow those modifications or not.
The use of Java 8 continues dominating over Java 9 due to its clear code and performance. Up to now, Java 9 needs a lot of tools for programmers to migrate in full to the latest version.
The community is waiting for two new releases known as Java 18 and 19. Due to a shorter release time, they will be unambiguously smaller than the previous versions. New releases will introduce additional features concerning reference implementation and library writing. So, a comprehensive list of modifications will be available with a release date approaching.
The main question customers ask is “Is Java good for the software project I have in mind?” To answer it, you should first consider the advantages and disadvantages of Java.
Advantages of Java showcased
Let’s enumerate the boons of using Java as a programming language.
- Simplicity. As far as its syntax is concerned, Java is less complicated than C or C++. After all, the chief reason for Java creation was to avoid such awkward features of these two as operator overloading, storage classes, explicit pointer concepts, etc., that give grey hair to developers writing code in them. The absence of such posers makes debugging and maintenance of software written in Java a breeze.
- Mild learning curve. Its foolproof nature contributes much to the minimization of efforts needed to master Java. Why so? Because, unlike other programming languages that resemble a machine code, Java looks like human language. And communicating with humans is easier for us to learn than talking to a machine in its hard-to-grasp vernacular. How can the machine understand what humans say to it? Special interpreters and compilers are utilized to translate Java into the code the AI can read.
- Object-oriented architecture. When coding in Java, you don’t only define the kind of data and its structure but also the functions it will perform. In this way, you can build relationships between various data pieces (“objects”), update legacy code written by other developers, and further reuse them in other programs. Moreover, such characteristic of Java facilitates pre-planning and project organization efforts as well as allows programmers to forestall errors and conceal sensitive information.
- Security. The last capability mentioned above contributes much to the cyber security of Java-based software. How is that achieved? As a rule, explicit pointers used by other languages and containing the memory address of values provide an easy path for cybercriminals to penetrate the software. Since the very concept of pointers is alien to Java, the problem becomes non-existent. Besides, the security managers enable defining access rules to each class within an application.
- Distributed nature. While working on a Java project, you can share data and programs across a broad network of computers. Naturally, it enhances the speed of software development and improves the efficiency of the process.
- A wide range of APIs. During the development stage, programmers are engaged in various activities, such as database connection, networking, utility employment, etc. It is essential to keep a communication channel between them. Java offers a set of application programming interfaces (APIs) to ensure the smooth character of these communications.
- Automatic memory management. While writing code, every programmer allocates memory resources to be utilized. If some objects aren’t needed anymore, they should be disposed of in the garbage bin. Otherwise, they take up too much memory, thus slowing down the development progress.
However, if memory purge is performed manually, developers may forget to do it quite often to free the room. Java has a garbage collector functionality that automatically identifies objects your program doesn’t refer to and removes them.
- Multithreading support. A thread is the smallest processing unit programmers utilize in their work. Switching between them is quite time-consuming since they share the same memory space. Java allows running several program threads simultaneously, thus serving as a premium time-saver.
- Platform independence. In Java, you can build a program on Windows or Android and then translate it to bytecode to be further run on any computer powered by other platforms. The only condition for such a portability option is the support of Java Virtual Machine.
Alongside unquestionable benefits, Java has some bottlenecks worth mentioning.
More about Java pros and cons.
A few words on Java disadvantages
We at DICEUS use Java in our projects on a daily basis, so we know its shortcomings inside out.
- Slow performance. Human language likeness has its flipside, after all. The need for translation into machine-level code hinders performance. Garbage collector automation is another performance-impeding factor, so all in all, Java is outstripped by native languages in this aspect.
- The verbosity of code. As is the case with any high-level language, Java is too wordy. Its syntax abounds in lengthy and complex sentences that look rather cumbersome.
- Inadequate interface. While mobile apps created with Java have quite decent UI on desktops, this app element leaves much to be desired. Of course, developers can leverage special graphical interface builders to improve it, but you will have to figure out which suits the project in question, and this is going to take you quite a time for sure.
- No backup capability. Java’s priority is data storage, whereas its backup is lacking. With emergencies likely to crop up out of the blue and destroy the results of the day’s work on the project, this deficiency can cost the unlucky developers the loss of precious time and excessive effort necessary to do it all over again.
Should you use Java for your project: The verdict
Since the merits of Java are weightier than its demerits, it stays on top of the most-wanted IT technologies list. However, it doesn’t mean it can be employed for any use case. Before opting for it, you should regard the project you want to be implemented and see whether it fits the task.
If you don’t feel confident in making the right choice yourself, it is sensible to address experts in the field. DICEUS can offer you professional advice and handle a Java-based project of any complexity delivering a top-notch product at a reasonable price.
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