What is Java

Java can be defined as a fast, secure, and reliable object oriented programming language. Java is also a platform. Now let’s understand these two different things in detail.

Java, a programming language – Like many other programming languages like C, C++, python, Visual Basic, JavaScript and many more, Java is also a programming language. Below are the main features of Java

Object Oriented, Fast, Secure, Reliable, Simple, Robust, Platform independent, Multi-thread, concurrent, Functional

Java as a platform – A platform is a piece of software which is designed in such a way that can run different smaller programs. Java comes with its own rutime environment known as JRE on which Java programs can be run. And therefore it is also known as a platform. Java platform consists of runtime components, all required libraries and binaries.

Types of Java Applications: Java applications can be categorized in following

1. Standalone applications – These types of applications are created using AWT and and Swing. These are mainly desktop applications and need to be installed on every machine which needs to run it. These are also known as Windows applications.
2. Web applications – A web application is the one that can be accessed over the web i.e. internet or intranet. Java web technologies like JSP, Servlets, spring, hibernate, jsf, springboot are used to develope web based applications.
3. Enterprise applications – These applications are distributed in nature. Now, technologies and services are used across the enterprises in order to enable software applications and hardware systems. Banking applications are examples of enterprise applications.
4. Mobile applications – An application that is designed to run on mobile devices such as mobile phone and tablets is known as mobile application. Android and JAVA ME technologies are used for this purpose.