Features of Java

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The main objective of Java programming language creation was to make it portable, simple and secure programming language. Apart from this, there are also some awesome features which play important role in the polularity of this language. The features of Java are also known as java buzzwords. Following is a list of most important features of Java language. The Java Features given below are simple and easy to understand.

Java Features

  1. Simple
  2. Object-Oriented
  3. Portable
  4. Platform independent
  5. Secured
  6. Robust
  7. Architecture neutral
  8. Dynamic
  9. Interpreted
  10. High Performance
  11. Multithreaded
  12. Distributed

Simple

Java is very easy to learn and its syntax is simple, clean and easy to understand. According to Sun, Java language is simple because:
      syntax is based on C++ (so easier for programmers to learn it after C++).
      removed many confusing and/or rarely-used features e.g., explicit pointers, operator overloading etc.
      No need to remove unreferenced objects because there is Automatic Garbage Collection in java.

Object-oriented

Java is 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 behaviour.
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

java is platform independent

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 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 e.g. 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 virtual machine sandbox

how java is secured

  • Classloader: Classloader in Java is a part of the Java Runtime Environment(JRE) which is used to dynamically load Java classes into the Java Virtual Machine. 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.

These security are provided by java language. Some security can also be provided by application developer through SSL, JAAS, Cryptography etc.

Robust

Robust simply means strong. Java is robust because:

  • It uses strong memory management.
  • There are lack of pointers that avoids security problem.
  • There is automatic garbage collection in java.
  • There is exception handling and type checking mechanism in java. All these points makes java robust.

Architecture-neutral

Java is architecture neutral because there is no implementation dependent features e.g. 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. But in java, it occupies 4 bytes of memory for both 32 and 64 bit architectures.

Portable

Java is portable because it facilitates you to carry the java bytecode to any platform.

High-performance

Java is faster than traditional interpretation since bytecode is “close” to native code still somewhat slower than a compiled language (e.g., C++). Java is an interpreted language, so it is also a reason that why it is slower than compiled language C, C++.

Distributed

Java is distributed because it facilitates us to create distributed applications in java. RMI and EJB are used for creating distributed applications. We may 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.

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