Based on the enormous amount of press Java is getting and the amount of excitement it has generated, you may get the impression that Java will save the world-or at least solve all the problems of the Internet. Not so.
Java’s hype has run far ahead of its capabilities, and while Java is indeed new and interesting, it really is another programming language with which you write programs that run on the Internet. In this respect, Java is closer 

Java is a widely-used programming language and computing platform developed by Sun Microsystems (now owned by Oracle Corporation). It was designed to be platform-independent, meaning that programs written in Java can run on any device that has a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) installed, regardless of the underlying hardware or operating system.

to popular programming languages such as C, C++, Visual Basic, or Pascal, than it is to a page description language such as HTML, or a very simple scripting language such as JavaScript.

More specifically, Java is an object-oriented programming language developed by Sun Microsystems, a company best known for its high-end UNIX workstations. Modeled after C++, the Java language was designed to
be small, simple, and portable across platforms and operating systems, both at the source and at the binary level, which means that Java programs (applets and applications) can run on any machine that has the Java
virtual machine installed (you’ll learn more about this later).

Java is usually mentioned in the context of the World Wide Web, where browsers such as Netscape’s Navigator and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer claim to be “Java enabled.” Java enabled means that the browser in
question can download and play Java programs, called applets, on the reader’s system. Applets appear in a Web page much the same way as images do, but unlike images, applets are dynamic and interactive. Applets
can be used to create animation, figures, forms that immediately respond to input from the reader, games, or other interactive effects on the same Web pages among the text and graphics. Figure 1.1 shows an applet
running in Netscape 3.0. (This applet, at http://prominence.com/java/poetry/, is an electronic version of the refrigerator magnets that you can move around to create poetry or messages.)

Figure 1.1 : Netscape running a Java applet.

New Term
Applets are programs that are downloaded from the World Wide Web by a Web browser and run inside an HTML Web page. You’ll need a Java-enabled browser
such as Netscape Navigator or Microsoft’s Internet Explorer to run applets.

To create an applet, you write it in the Java language, compile it using a Java compiler, and refer to that applet in your HTML Web pages. You put the resulting HTML and Java files on a Web site in the same way that
you make ordinary HTML and image files available. Then, when someone using a Java-enabled browser views your page with the embedded applet, that browser downloads the applet to the local system and executes it,
allowing your reader to view and interact with your applet in all its glory. (Readers using other browsers may see text, a static graphic, or nothing.) You’ll learn more about how applets, browsers, and the World Wide
Web work together later in this book.

While applets are probably the most popular use of Java, the important thing to understand about Java is that you can do so much more with it than create and use applets. Java was written as a full-fledged
general-purpose programming language in which you can accomplish the same sorts of tasks and solve the same sorts of problems that you can in other programming languages, such as C or C++.

Here are some key features and uses of Java:

1. **Simple and Object-Oriented**: Java is designed to be easy to learn and use.It follows the principles of object-oriented programming (OOP),which allows developers to create modular and reusable code.

2. **Platform Independence**: Java programs are compiled into an intermediate bytecode format, which can be executed on any system with a JVM. This “write once, run anywhere” capability is one of Java’s most important features.

3. **Robust and Secure**: Java is known for its strong memory management, built-in security features, and exception handling. This makes Java programs less prone to crashes or
security vulnerabilities.

4. **Rich Standard Library**: Java comes with a comprehensive set of libraries for tasks such as networking,
file I/O, database connectivity, and more. These libraries simplify development and allow developers to focus on solving business problems rather than reinventing common functionalities.

5. **Used in Various Applications**: Java is used extensively in web development (e.g., servlets, JSP),
enterprise applications (e.g., Spring Framework), mobile applications (Android development), scientific applications, and large-scale systems (e.g., banking systems, e-commerce platforms).

6. **Community Support**: Java has a large and active developer community, with abundant resources such as documentation, tutorials, and open-source libraries/frameworks available to support developers.

To write and run Java programs, developers typically use the Java Development Kit (JDK), which includes tools for compiling Java source code into bytecode (javac compiler)
and executing it on a JVM (java runtime). Popular integrated development environments (IDEs) such as IntelliJ IDEA,
Eclipse, and NetBeans provide powerful tools for Java development, including code editors, debuggers,
and project management features.