Java is a powerful general-purpose programming language. It is used to develop desktop and mobile applications, big data processing, embedded systems, and so on. According to Oracle, the company that owns Java, Java runs on 3 billion devices worldwide, which makes Java one of the most popular programming languages.
Java is a programming language and a platform. Java is a high level, robust, object-oriented and secure programming language.
Java was developed by Sun Microsystems (which is now the subsidiary of Oracle) in the year 1995. James Gosling is known as the father of Java. Before Java, its name was Oak. Since Oak was already a registered company, so James Gosling and his team changed the name from Oak to Java.
Platform: Any hardware or software environment in which a program runs, is known as a platform. Since Java has a runtime environment (JRE) and API, it is called a platform.
According to Sun, 3 billion devices run Java. There are many devices where Java is currently used. Some of them are as follows:
Standalone applications are also known as desktop applications or window-based applications. These are traditional software that we need to install on every machine. Examples of standalone application are Media player, antivirus, etc. AWT and Swing are used in Java for creating standalone applications.
An application that runs on the server side and creates a dynamic page is called a web application. Currently, Servlet, JSP, Struts, Spring, Hibernate, JSF, etc. technologies are used for creating web applications in Java.
An application that is distributed in nature, such as banking applications, etc. is called an enterprise application. It has advantages like high-level security, load balancing, and clustering. In Java, EJB is used for creating enterprise applications.
An application which is created for mobile devices is called a mobile application. Currently, Android and Java ME are used for creating mobile applications.