10 Reasons Why Java Is Popular
1- The Javacompiler is one of the things that is considered the basis of a programming language. In Java, unlike C++, you can simply compile your code without thinking too much about optimization and all the other compiler specifications. This is the way to convert your source code into an executable format.
The Java compiler cannot work without bytecode. Apart from the advantages of bytecode that we will talk about later, the representation of Java is also in the JIT (Just In Time compiler) which optimizes performance.
2- The Java API
The greatest aspect of the Java API is that it has always been there. The JDK API consists of very strong, stable, and well-understood libraries. While many people complain about lack of features in this area and resort to Google Guava or Apache. People often forget that the core of the API is still the only one that is under all the extensions.
In summary, the Java API is incredibly stable and compatible, allows all kinds of libraries, frameworks and versions are compatible and interact with each other, which is why Java rocks as it says in English.
3- Open Source
The advantage of open source is that you can contribute and create an open source project for your application. Open source is considered by the developer community to be an essential part of software development.
I hear you immediately say that Java is not open-source, and you're right, it's not! What's special is that the Java platform brings everything together from mobile phones to businesses. Linux is perhaps the only open-source technology that has achieved similar ubiquity, with Java being the only software development platform with this status, which pushes developers to contribute to open source on all fronts.
4- Java
Another interesting point of view is that Java implements a memory model that handles memory very well. Parallelism is one of the ways to increase computing power and competition. Processors have memory models where locks can be used to ensure that threads that are being written are visible to other threads or processes.
Unlike other languages, the Java virtual machine is hardware-independent. Concurrency is handled by external libraries (such as Python and JavaScript). Java includes this in its API and can be used at any time by processes that need coordination. The java memory model is designed to allocate the three essential components: the language, the compiler, and the API to offer concurrent operations and sharing cases.
5- High performance
Many languages and platforms have adopted the virtual machine and Java was not the first. Smalltalk is a language with a virtual machine that was created long before Java was invented!
So, why is Java better? In summary, the JVM is the most complete of any application: it is cross-platform, open-source, very fast, checks byte code for security, the language type is both dynamic and static, automatic memory management and it is tune to execution.
6- The Bytecode
Bytecode allows the java compiler to express instructions in the format that is directly understandable by the virtual machine.
Bytecode is a series of instructions generated by the JVM and it can run on multiple operating systems by a Java virtual machine. The programmer does not need to understand the bytecode.
7- Smart IDEs
It took a while for IDEs to become as good as they are today. At the time, software development was different. People wrote the code with notepad or Notepad. But, when you're writing a complex program, you need a more powerful tool.
When IBM released Eclipse for free in open-source, all commercial IDEs had a drop in sales. Today, in 2015, we have three large, fully integrated IDEs: NetBeans, Eclipse, and IntelliJ IDEA. Projects have become more heterogeneous and management tools like Maven are fully integrated, making it easy for developers to collaborate on a project with different tools.
Today, you have free open-source access to add features to the IDE like plugins. It is a great advantage that these advanced tools are freely available to anyone who wants to develop software.
8- Profiling tools
there is a proverb: measure before you jump. The worst thing you can do is try to fix performance issues based on assumptions. You may either make things worse or waste time. You go to the code and search and search again to optimize and find the cause that created the problem without finding it.
So, how do you measure? The answer is that the Java platform makes it easy. JDK itself contains measurement tools and you can know exactly where the bottleneck is by measuring every aspect of your JVM. You don't have to guess, you see how powerful this tool is?
9- Backwards compatibility
Since the release of Java, the applications that were compiled at the time are still executable in new versions. These applications are not running on the same infrastructure, each time on the latest version of the JVM. You don't have to rewrite or recompile your program, all you need to do is copy the old JAR file and run your application again. There is no need to check the version number or if the features are compatible. It's really nice, you just have to copy and paste!
10- Maturity and innovation
The availability of intelligent IDEs, compatible platforms, a vast Java API, a large open-source community, and a language that has been designed to be re-adaptable, makes Java the perfect tool for teamwork. It allows people to interact with each other and programmers to edit the code easily. It also allows people to contribute and create complex solutions that require a long development time but also a long period of use.
20 years has been cast, Java seems to be improved and adapted, while keeping its stability and compatibility. Obviously, this means that it is slowly and carefully improving. Today, we have arrived at the latest and most stable version of Java 8, which encompasses all the features that energize the language and the platform. Java 8 is a big step forward and the perfect example that combines maturity and innovation.