Completing silver jubilee was a feather in the hat for one of the oldest programming languages – Java, which surely doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon!
As Java turns 26 in 2022, questions such as whether Java is relevant, or is Java going away, are lingering at the back of the minds of programmers. The importance of Java in programming can be questioned due to the launch of new coding technologies such as Python, Kotlin, PHP, or Swift.
Despite of the emergence of novel coding languages, Java ranks as the third popular programming language, according to the TIOBE Programming Community index. Fresh releases of Java versions come out in March and September, thus making this language as one of the leading innovations in today’s time.
How Java Is Used Currently
Top sectors that use Java are science and education, law and government, IT and electronics, and finance. Inclusion of Java across these sectors is a driving factor for the growing number of jobs for Java developers.
Java remains as the most used programming language for a broad range of areas, and here’s an analysis of how Java is used across different fields.
1. Java in Web Development
Java is flexible, well-established, and a powerful tool for web development. Platform independence – one of the features of Java gives it a unique outlook because then Java can be run on any device.
Java comes with a standard library, which offers tools for tasks such as networking, input and output, and graphic user interface.
Scalability is an essential aspect during web development, and Java is capable of scaling both vertically and horizontally to meet the growing demands of projects. Further, Java supports cross-platform programming language, thus no need to worry about porting codes to other platforms like Linux or Microsoft.
Memory management feature of Java helps programmers to monitor objects that are no longer needed and delete from memory. This speeds up the development process without having to keep track of everything in the application.
2. Java in Big Data
Java is known for its ability to utilize numerous data science methods and is a versatile programming language. Several platforms for processing and storing data were written in Scala and Java. For example, Hadoop HDFS – a processing and storage platform for big data.
Tools such as Spark, Hadoop, and Mahout in Java are open-source, thus making them flexible for data incorporation. Java is the first choice for developers as it spends less time on testing and codebase maintenance.
Big projects prefer Java because it can be statistically typed and is a reliable tool for clients due to broader user base. Large companies function on huge datasets, thus consider using Java as a basic programming language.
3. Application Development with Java
One major benefit of using Java for creating android applications is that it provides object-oriented programming (OOPs). This language is proficient due to its adaptive, scalable, and extensible nature.
Excellent collection of programming tools makes application development simple for developers. Some of the developmental tools are Eclipse, Netbeans, and more. These tools helps programmers while coding and to debug as well.
Security is an integral part of Java, hence is recommended during mobile application development. Other programming languages are created with security in mind, and these include runtime, compiler, and interpreter.
4. Java Based Embedded Systems
Essential aspects for embedded systems are small memory footprint, deterministic behavior, and efficient execution. Therefore, even though Java is an ideal language for application and web development, it may not be the best for embedded systems.
The key problem is deterministic behavior as the garbage collector feature of Java is non-deterministic in nature. As garbage collector can’t be eliminated from Java, developers are working to create deterministic garbage collectors.
Java is appropriate in situations where embedded device connects to internet network, as this case, software will be written in C/C++ and assembly.
5. AI Development in Java
For implementing Java in AI (Artificial Intelligence), conventional concepts and algorithms must be known. Consider learning basic concepts through books, websites, or courses, as these are helpful while using Java AI libraries, for developing applications in AI.
Varied AI libraries are used for numerous applications and these are Neural Networks, Expert Systems, Genetic Algorithms, Natural Language Processing, and Automatic Programming. Further, Java is a popular programming language and is beneficial for debugging, large-scale projects, interactions with users, and data representation in graphics.
Virtual machine learning technology in Java helps developers to make one version of app, which is enabled by running in Java supported platforms.
Why Java Won’t Go Away in the Future
Java code isn’t going anywhere in the future due to the following reasons –
1. Java is the most preferred language for technologies such as artificial intelligence, web, big data, mobile development, blockchain, and IoT (Internet of Things).
2. This coding language is excellent for streaming apps due to its refractive function.
3. Java helps to develop server less apps and FaaS (Function as a Service) with effective functionalities.
4. Leading applications such as Netflix, Uber, and AirBnb are still using Java for their development processes.
5. This coding language provides updates faster and keeps up with the pace.
Apart from these points, APIs such as JavaServer Page and Servlet have proved that Java is a strong tool for server side computing. Java is popular in the mobile market due to growing usage of Java virtual machine language and android.
Key cloud providers such as Azure, Amazon, Oracle, Alibaba, and Google offer Java based SDKs to companies, for managing their cloud resources. Investments in Java helps to move applications to cloud technology and Java frameworks such as Eclipse, Vaadin, and Spring are helping enterprises to develop cloud native applications.
A major reason why Java won’t go away is that this language delivers new versions after every six months. Developers don’t have to wait for a long time for new and innovative features. The latest Java version – Java 17 was released in September 2021.
New versions of Java is an effective way to create new languages and features such as Java records, and to ameliorate performance of applications.
Backward compatibility of Java code allows designers and architects to choose this language for long term projects. Large enterprises can consider Java for big size projects that require constant modifications and maintenance for long duration.
Backward compatibility hampers the speed of the coding language, but this drawback is preferable as new features can be added.
Java provides unprecedented productivity and performance. This coding language is appropriate for applications that need high security and performance. The goal of Java is to be user-friendly coding language that can solve complicated issues in a highly networked area.
Coding Languages That Can Replace Java
Despite of being user-friendly and offering wide range of applications, Java can be replaced with emerging technologies which are as follows –
1. Kotlin
Kotlin is developed by JetBrains in the year 2010 and was known as the official android development programming language in the year 2017, thus becoming a competitor for Java and replacing it.
This language is better than Java because it targets conventional problems such as functional and object oriented programming. Whereas, Java is limited towards object oriented programming. Kotlin is designed to develop an extension function, which otherwise is absent in Java.
Language scripting abilities helps developers to utilize Kotlin directly in Gradle scripts, on the other hand, Java doesn’t possess any of these abilities. These features of Kotlin makes it an ideal choice over Java.
2. Clojure
Clojure is developed by Rich Hickey, and this is a functional programming language that is a dialect of Lisp. This language is loaded with traits such as giving high performance and creating concurrent solutions.
Clojure allows developers to use unique programming styles and runs CLR (Common Language Runtime) of Microsoft. However, Clojure can give a hard time due to lack of understanding on how it works or how to install it.
Developers who have just started working with Clojure are affected with parenthesis issues as this coding language is full of parenthesis and can be problematic. However, programmers can use tools for structural editing.
3. Scala
Scala is developed to ameliorate productivity and to add features of functional programming. This language is known for its characteristics such as pattern matching, algebraic, and lazy computation.
Scala can replace Java because this coding language utilizes an actor model that supports modern concurrency, whereas Java uses conventional thread based model. Further, Scala supports static members, lazy evaluation, and operator overloading, thus making it ideal for programming.
4. Fantom
Fantom is made by Brian and Andy Frank in the year 2017. This programming language runs on JRE (Java Runtime Environment), CLR (Common Language Runtime), and .Net. Fantom is a general purpose and object oriented language, which is designed to offer a standard library API.
Fantom resembles C language, is an open source, and is a portable language to use. Fantom is considered a the best choice for Internet of Things, browsers, servers, and embedded devices.
5. Groovy
Groovy is developed by Pivotel and offers an advantage to the developers who have worked on Java beforehand, plus provides features that are provided by languages such as Ruby and Python.
DSL (Domain Specific Language) helps in learning, integrates other Java programs, supports static compilation, and possesses scripting abilities.
To answer the question – ‘is java going away?’, the answer is ‘no’ because Java is a top competitor and this language being around longer than other programs is an advantage. Despite new emerging languages, Java will be preferred by large entities, and this simple, user-friendly language has many more years to go.