Web Design & Development

Lecture 2
Intro to Java
 Topics We Will Cover Today
 History of Java
 Why Java ?
 Some Sample Java Based Applications
 Writing a Basic Java Program
 Java Program Development and Execution Steps
 History
 Java
 Based on C and C++
 Developed in 1991 for intelligent consumer electronic devices
 Green Project (According to Gosling, "the goal was ... to build
a system that would let us do a large, distributed,
heterogeneous network of consumer electronic devices all
talking to each other." )
 James Gosling Modified C++
 Named Oak then Java
History….
 Platform independent
 Interpreted Language
 Intermediate Code (Byte Code)
 Reliable
 Multiple inheritance and Operator overloading
removed
 No Pointers because of security reasons
 Built in network support
History…
 Internet exploded in 1993, saved project
 Reliability
 Security

 Platform Independence

 Java formally announced in 1995

 Now used to create interactive web
applications, distributed enterprise
application for consumer devices
(pagers, cell phones) and much more..
Why Java???
 Motivation 
 Portable WORA!!!!!!
 Simple
 “Pure” Object Oriented Language
 Support for Distributed and Web Applications
 Rich Libraries
 Multithreading , Swing , RMI , NET , SQL …..

 Automatic Garbage Collection

 More Robust
Portable
 “Write-Once Run-Anywhere”
 The Java Virtual Machine becomes the
common denominator
 Bytecodes are common across all platforms
 JVM hides the complexity of working on a
particular platform
 Difficult to implement a JVM
 But simpler for the application developer
 Java does this well
Java Platform
The Java Platform

App1 App2 App3 App4 App5

Java Virtual Machine

Windows Linux OS X Solaris Linux

Intel PowerPC SPARC

Simple
 Similar to C/C++ in syntax
 In-fact Java is C++ minus
 operator overloading
 direct pointer manipulation or pointer arithmetic
 multiple inheritance
 Destructors (Garbage Collector– handles memory
automatically)
 No Templates
 Header/make files

 Lots of other things which make Java more attractive.

Object-Oriented
 Fundamentally based on OOP

 All functions belong to classes or objects. No global

variables or functions exist

 All classes by default inherit from a common ancestor

known as “Object”

 “Almost” all data types are objects

 OOP will be covered in a little more detail later.

Distributed / Network
Oriented
 Java grew up in the days of the Internet
 Inherently network friendly
 Original release of Java came with Networking
libraries
 Newer releases contain even more for
handling distributed applications
 RMI, Transactions
 Support for
Web and Enterprise Applications
 Given below are some of the Java technologies that can
be used for web and enterprise application development
 Servlets
 JSP
 Applets
 JDBC
 RMI
 EJBs
 JSF
And many more…
Robust / Secure / Safe
 Designed with the intention of being secure
 No pointer arithmetic or memory management!
 The JVM “verifier”
 Checks integrity of byte-codes

 Dynamic runtime checking for pointer and array access

 No buffer overflow bugs!

 SecurityManager to check which operations a piece of

code is allowed to do
 “Sandbox” operation for applets and other untrusted
code
 Limited set of operations or resources made available

 Contrast to ActiveX
Rich Set of Libraries
 Multithreading
 Swing
 Regular Expression
 NET
 SQL
 Util
 Serialization …………….
Java Programmer Efficiency
 Faster Development
 More programmer friendly
 Less error prone
 OOP
 Easier to manage large development projects
 Robust memory system
 No pointer arithmetic and manual memory
management. Garbage collector!
 Libraries
 Re-use of code
Disadvantages 
 Java performance IS slower than C/C++

Tradeoff between development time vs. run time

Additional checks in Java which make is secure and
robust and network aware etc, all have a small cost.
 BUT
 JIT compilation and HotSpot

Dynamic compilation of bytecode to native code at
runtime to improve performance
 HotSpot optimizes code on the fly based on dynamic
execution patterns

Can sometimes be even faster than compiled C code!

 Increasing processing speeds helps in overcoming

this short fall
Microsoft vs. Java
 Java is platform independent
 Was considered a threat to Microsoft’s
dominance
 Sun vs. Microsoft Law Suit

 Microsoft’s latest response to Java

 C#
 Very similar to Java in structure and style
 Some improvements over past releases of Java
(which have now emerged in Java 1.5)
Some Sample Java Based
Applications
 Hubble Space Telescope
Monitoring
 NASA Goddard’s most
successful project ever
 Launched in 1990.
 Has sensitive light
detectors and cameras
 Provided view of
galaxies up to 10 billion
light years away
 Mars Pathfinder Mission
Simulator
 Used for world-wide data
viewing
 Winner of the 1997 NASA
software of the year
 The current rover location
is displayed, along with
visual indications of
“targets”
 Provides close-ups of the
wedge photograph
 IntelliBrain™ -Bot
 Java Programmable
 RoboJDE™ java enabled
robotics software
development environment
 Makes developing,
debugging robotics
program a snap
 Star Office 5.2
 Cross platform Office
suite completely written
in java
Web Based
Course Registration System
Web Based Performance Review
Management System
Web Based
School Management System
Writing Basic Java
Program
Syntax for C++ programmers
Software Requirements
 For the start following software will do the job
 You need to have the latest version of JDK.
(J2SE 5.0) You can download it for free from
 http://java.sun.com/j2se/
 A little older versions such JDK 1.4 or 1.3 will
also work
 Notepad
 And you should set your path variable.
Canonical Example
HelloWorld Application in Java
/* The HelloWorldApp class implements an application
that simply displays "Hello World!" to the standard
output. */

public class HelloWorldApp {

public static void main(String[] args) {

//Display the string. No global main

System.out.println("Hello World!"); }
}
Compiling and Running
the program
 Save this file in some directory and compile it
using
 javac HelloWorldApp.java

 Run the compiled file by using the command

 java HelloWorldApp
 Java Program Development and
Execution Steps
 Java Systems
 Consist of environment, language, Java Applications
Programming Interface (API)
 Java programs have five phases

1. Edit
 .java extension

2. Compile
 javac command: javac MyProgram.java

 Creates .class file containing bytecodes with similar name

Java Program Development and
Execution Steps…
3. Loading
 Class loader transfers .class file into memory
 Classes loaded and executed by interpreter with

java command
 To load,

appletviewer Welcome.html
OR
java MyProgram
Java Program Development and
Execution Steps…

4. Verify
 Bytecode verifier makes sure bytecodes are valid
and do not violate security

5. Execute
 Computer interprets program one bytecode at a
time
 Performs actions specified in program
 Program is created in
Phase 1 Editor Disk the editor and stored
on disk.
Compiler creates
Phase 2 Compiler Disk bytecodes and stores
them on disk.
Primary
Memory
Class Loader
Phase 3
Class loader puts
bytecodes in memory.
Disk
..
..
..
Primary
Memory
Bytecode Verifier
Phase 4 Bytecode verifier
confirms that all
bytecodes are valid
and do not violate
Java’s security
.. restrictions.
..
..
Primary
Interpreter Memory Interpreter reads
Phase 5 bytecodes and
translates them into a
language that the
computer can
understand, possibly
.. storing data values as
.. the program executes.
..
Understanding Basics

 Naming Conventions
 MyClass
 myMethod()
 myVariable
 MY_CONSTANT