Are you an aspiring programmer and confused about whether to learn Java or not? There is a common perception that Java is losing ground, but nothing could be further from the truth. Java is one of the most popular languages globally as it’s open-source and runs on almost every operating system. This, together with the fact that it can be used to build anything – from android apps to server networks – means that it’s a very powerful and versatile language whose popularity as one of the best programming languages remains undented.
What is Java?
Java is a high-level programming language developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems in 1995. It is a general-purpose programming language, which means you can technically use it for anything as it is intended to be written once and run anywhere. Said differently, if you write a Java program and run Java C or Java compiler, the compiled Java code can run on all platforms that support Java without the need for recompilation.
Java Virtual Machine (JVM) that enables a computer to run a Java program was open source in the mid-2000s. It led to the flourishing of the language, making it the number one programming language up until around 2017. With the rise of other programming languages like Python and JavaScript, Java did see a downward trend in popularity. Nevertheless, not only is it still relevant, but it is also among the topmost competitors.
According to Oracle, there are more than 45 billion active Java Virtual Machines (JVM) globally.
Why Learn Java Despite So Many Options?
What makes Java so popular? And why should you learn Java programming even after 25 years since its inception? The reasons are many as Java has many features that stand out from the rest.
Around 40% of programmers worldwide use Java, which shows why many Fortune 500 companies like Walmart and J.P. Morgan Chase opt for it in their development projects. So, the language is not going anywhere yet or even in the next decade just because of the amount of code already written in it.
Despite the development of so many new programming languages in the recent years, there is no such thing as the perfect programming language to learn. Java is a great choice even if it is your first coding language. If you are still not sure about learning Java, here are the reasons why half of the programming globe chooses to learn this language:
Easy to Learn
Java is an extremely easy to learn language. A programming language that is easy to learn is easy to apply. Java is concurrent, which makes it convenient for you to process your data parallelly. In addition, it is platform-independent. You may have heard something called WORA, which is short for “write once and run anywhere,” and Java fully supports this helpful feature. This means once you have written your application, you can run it across any device or machine that supports a Java environment.
Open-source
Java is open source, and this makes it available for anyone to use. Also, the Java Development Kit (JDK) and Java Runtime Environment (JRE) are completely free. Everyone out there wants to set up their website for free. Since Java is free, you can easily create Java applications at no cost. It is one of the simplest and most fundamental programming languages that anyone can pick up and trust.
Java EE and Its Rich API
Java Enterprise Edition (EE) and its APIs are popular because it’s easy for a coder to build an application and use different technologies without actually knowing their internal implementation.
There are over 4500 Java APIs available for developers, including APIs for I/O, networking, utilities, XML parsing, database connections, … just about everything. The core Java API has no compatibility issues and handles a wide range of procedures and functions.
Numerous Resources & Community Support
Java as a programming language is omnipresent, which means it is present everywhere from phones to set-top boxes to satellites. Once you have completely grasped the language, there is a huge and lucrative job market for you to tap into.
Learning is not at all a problem with Java. There are numerous online resources that can be a perfect companion for you and a vast support community spread all over the globe. Whether you are using Java to build a website or to power an Internet of Things (IoT) project, there is a community for you. Forums like Stack Overflow are popular with new and seasoned Java programmers to have their doubts answered or errors explained.
Java Applications
Java is used almost everywhere and offers an ocean of opportunities. Here are a handful of uses of Java:
Web Applications: Popular Java frameworks such as Spring or Hibernate are in high demand for building a range of web applications.
Microservices: Even if you want to run a micro service, you can use Java as a programming language or any of its frameworks such as Spring, Spring Boot, or Spring Could.
Android Development: Java is used in Android application development. We are all familiar with Android, an operating system developed by Google. But do you also know that Android applications and the Android operating system in itself make extensive use of Java?
Continuous Testing: There are automation testing tools like Selenium and QTP which are used to automate web applications and perform testing using Java. So, Java is definitely a go-to language for mobile devices.
Big Data: Java has its uses in one of the most popular and trending technologies: the big data technology. Hadoop, which is the most preferred framework for storing and processing big data, was extensively developed using Java and still uses its rich API. The MapReduce codes are also written in Java.
Java Development Tools
There are many powerful development tools in which you can do Java programming. NetBeans, IntelliJ, and Eclipse are among the most popular IDEs (integrated development environment) used to develop Java applications. These IDEs help in the code writing process and offer high-level debugging to the coders. Java is also widely used in Android application development. Android Studio, a popular IDE, accepts Java programming.
Java is Dynamic
Java is all over the place. It is on desktop, mobiles, cards, and in fact, everywhere. Below we list down a few of the many domains where Java is explicitly used.
Banking: Java helps you deal with transactional management.
Retail/Restaurant: Whenever you visit a store or a restaurant, the billing applications that you see are written in Java.
Stock Market: Using Java, one can simply write algorithms as to which company one should invest in. The application used in the stock market itself is created using Java.
Information Technology: Java is designed to solve implementation dependencies. This is the domain that hires most Java programmers.
The Java language is not limited to one domain. If you do an analysis, you will find that around 20% of the job openings look for Java skills, either alone or in addition to some other programming language. Java is used by giants like Google, Philips, Accenture, Uber, and many more. You can be completely assured that Java is not going out of the market any time soon.
OOPs Language
Java is a class-based, object-oriented programming language. An object-based application in Java is based on declaring classes, creating objects from them, and interacting between them. Being an object-oriented programming language, the concepts of Java are very easy and highly readable.
Portable
Being portable means Java can be used across various platforms. And, being open-source, it is platform-independent and can be used across operating systems. Hence, you can run a Java bytecode on any hardware compliant JVM (Java Virtual Machine). It allows for writing code or creating Java applications in a Microsoft Windows environment and then running them on any other environment.
Versatile
Java is said to be one of the most versatile languages. First of all, it has dynamic coding, which means all the codes are organized and stored in an object-oriented format known as classes. Secondly, it offers a secure environment, where even the untrusted codes can run without causing any harm to the security of the host environment. It can efficiently work with different resources across the network. This is also what makes Java network-centric and a language that is not going out of fashion any time soon.
Popularity & High Salary
TIOBE index, a programming community index, conducts a survey based on the usage of programming languages in the IT industry worldwide. Every year, it generates a programming community index from all the present trending programming languages to see their popularity. According to its Programming Community index of 2022, Java (12.13%) is the third most popular programming language after Python (15.33%) and C (14.08%). This shows how widely Java has been used in the industry for more than two decades.
Apart from this, Java developers get one of the highest salary packages. According to Glassdoor, the median salary of Java developers in the United States is around $107,099, and the active job openings are more than 10,000. Isn’t it amazing? This should give you an idea of how popular Java is and how widely it is used in the industry.
Conclusion
So, you should definitely learn Java to kickstart your IT career this year. Anyone passionate about becoming a highly skilled Java professional can easily become one through a professional Java certification course. We understand that learning anything new, especially programming, isn’t typically easy. And learning a verbose language like Java can be daunting. But with the availability of excellent online courses like the ExpertRating Java Course, the discomfort becomes much more manageable. Click the link below to learn Java programming at ExpertRating today.