Java (software Platform)

Java (software Platform)

Java is a set of several computer software products and specifications from Sun Microsystems (which has since merged with Oracle Corporation), that together provide a system for developing application software and deploying it in a cross-platform computing environment. Java is used in a wide variety of computing platforms from embedded devices and mobile phones on the low end, to enterprise servers and supercomputers on the high end. While less common on desktop computers, Java applets are sometimes used to provide improved and secure functions while browsing the World Wide Web.

Writing in the Java programming language is the primary way to produce code that will be deployed as Java bytecode. There are, however, bytecode compilers available for other languages such as Ada, JavaScript, Python, and Ruby. Several new languages have been designed to run natively on the Java Virtual Machine (JVM), such as Scala, Clojure and Groovy. Java syntax borrows heavily from C and C++, but object-oriented features are modeled after Smalltalk and Objective-C. Java eliminates certain low-level constructs such as pointers and has a very simple memory model where every object is allocated on the heap and all variables of object types are references. Memory management is handled through integrated automatic garbage collection performed by the JVM.

On November 13, 2006, Sun Microsystems made the bulk of its implementation of Java available under the GNU General Public License (GPL).