What is "JAVA" used for? New student..

[birthjay]

Hello,

What is the JAVA programming language used for and will it be around much longer? I have heard that is on the way out. It is a required class for the curriculum I am taking but I will put it off in case it is dropped if I find out it is a dying language.

Opinions, references, ideas....?????

[CornedBee]

I think the best source on what Java is is http://java.sun.com/

Java is a high-level, object-oriented, typesafe programming language. It features a large built-in library, unified root class hierarchy and byte code compilation. The last means that the language gets compiled to byte code, which is much like machine code but not specific to any CPU. On the target platform an interpreter or Just-In-Time compiler will execute the byte code. This offers platform-independence without recompilation at a performance that is far superior to scripting languages.

Java is used for:
1) Normal applications that run anywhere. See jEdit (www.jedit.org) or NetBeans (www.netbeans.org) for great programs written in Java. Go to sourceforge.net and look for programs written in Java, there's nearly everthing there.
2) Applets. An applet is a small application with strongly reduced capabilities that is run within a web browser or similar container.
3) Servlets and JSP. These are server-side technologies to serve dynamic content, similar to CGI, PHP or ASP, but IMHO superior to all of them.
4) Mobile applications. Java Micro Edition is available on most modern mobile phones. It enables you to use a subset of Java (much smaller library, no floating point support) to write programs that can be uploaded to and run on mobile phones, for example games.

Microsoft's .Net strategy and especially the language C# stand in direct competition to the Java Platform and Java. Java has the advantages of being an already established language, being far more accepted in the open source community and having real platform independence. It also has an open extension and standardization process, the Java Community Process, while .Net is made by MS and MS alone. MS on the other hand have the advantage of their extreme market power.

Expect both languages to be around for a long time to come.