61. Java

Java was originally developed as an implementation of a programming language that would compile and complete its directive functions regardless of platform and language version by James Gosling, a software developer employed by Sun Microsystems in June of 1991. Gosling's main goals in developing the Java language were: implementing object oriented programming methodology containing built in support for the use of computer networks, the ability to execute remote sources of code in a secure fashion, and of course cross platform compatibility. Java, the language, is a high-level object-oriented programming language, influenced in various ways by C, C++, and Smalltalk, with ideas borrowed from other languages as well (see O'Reilly's History of Programming Languages).

Its syntax was designed to be familiar to those familiar with C-descended "curly brace" languages, but with arguably stronger OO principles than those found in C++, static typing of objects, and a fairly rigid system of exceptions that require every method in the call stack to either handle exceptions or declare their ability to throw them. Garbage collection is assumed, sparing the developer from having to free memory used by obsolete objects. The most appealing feature of Java is indubitable its platform independence, which means that any snippet of Java code, when compiled, will run in a similar fashion on any of the supported platforms. A programmer should be able to write a program one time, compile it one time, and then be able to execute it anywhere; holding true to the Sun Microsystems slogan, "Write Once, Run Anywhere."

Java is also a distributed programming language, meaning that it can operate across networks. Telling a Java program to transmit itself to another machine on a network and to then work with data sitting on yet a third machine on a network is no problem at all, even across a network of networks such as the Internet. The distributed nature of Java also means that it is architecture neutral. This simply means that the programming language is designed to execute on most any modern day computing platform. One of the more important aspects of the Java language is that it was designed from the ground up as a secure programming language. What does "secure" mean? Think for a moment about what happens when you are surfing the net, and a Java applet loads itself into your web browser, and starts running: you have just allowed some foreign program to install itself to your system and execute!

Imagine the sorts of problems that could arise if some malicious programmer wrote a hostile Java applet that, say, reformatted your hard drive. Fortunately, this possibility is remote at best. Java was designed with many safeguards that essentially allow it to run within some very tightly controlled confines. For example, Java does not have many of the fundamental tools for manipulating a computer's memory that you would find in a language like C. Also, Java is an interpreted language, meaning that the Java code that runs on your system is read, checked, then verified as authentic Java code before it is allowed to run on your system.