How Do You Code in Java?

As one of the most popular programming languages around today, Java is worth understanding. Even if you don’t ever plan on coding in it, it’s still good to have an idea of what Java is, how it’s used, and what might be required to learn it. As you grow in your development skills, you’ll see more and more clearly that technologies are deeply intertwined, and it’s hard to do good work without understanding how your application interfaces with others. 

Given Java’s popularity and the necessity of a broad knowledge base, we are going to provide an overview that answers the question: how do you code in Java? 

What Is Java? 

Java is a flexible, general-purpose, object-oriented programming language that’s found use in applications as diverse as gaming, high-performance computing, and web development. It’s an old language, first introduced by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems in the ancient, mist-shrouded world of 1995.

There are definite advantages to working in a mature technology. With all the buzz around brand-new platforms and frameworks, it can be easy to forget how nice it is to have a stable language with an established community of users who know and understand best practices. This comes in very handy when you need help troubleshooting common issues. 

Syntactically, Java is similar to C and C++, but it doesn’t support as much low-level functionality as either one. 

New coders can be forgiven for confusing JavaScript and Java, but pretty much the only thing they have in common is the ‘java’ in their names. Both are entirely different languages with different strengths, weaknesses, and use cases. 

Where Is Java Used?

The short answer is ‘all over the place’. A language doesn’t survive and grow over two decades without having a lot to offer. The most important Java use case for Career Karma readers is as one of the cornerstones of Android development. Many Android applications are developed in the Android Software Development Kit (SDK) using Java, though it’s harder to learn than Kotlin, another Android language. 

Java is also used in game development. For various complicated reasons, Java isn’t as widespread in the game development universe as C and C++, but there are a number of blockbuster success stories, including Runescape and Minecraft, which are both written in Java. 

Though a lot of AI work is done with Python and Python-based frameworks, there are tons of AI applications written in and written for Java. Java can be used for natural language processing and natural language generation, to build neural networks, and for deep learning applications. 

Java is also a widespread tool for building web applications. After you have a web page written in HTML/JavaScript, you’ll need it to communicate with the servers on the backend, and many Java-based tools exist for handling this and similar tasks. 

How Do You Code in Java? 

Deciding on the tools you want to use for coding in Java really depends on what you’re trying to build. 

• The Grails and Blade frameworks are popular for web development applications.
  
  
• Google Web Toolkit let’s you build Java that’s run as Javascript on the client side. 

• Hibernate facilitates communication between Java code and databases 
• Deeplearning4J and Neuroph allow for deep learning and neural networks to be handled in Java.

With this many use cases, Java really is an excellent language to master!