Tech Term of the Week #4: Java at 8:54 AM

So Java is a object oriented programming language. Now I'm sure all of you have no idea what I'm saying (cept you Thomas...) right now. An object oriented lanugage uses objects, such as data lists and methods to do its thing. At this point I'm still pretty sure most of you have no clue what I'm talking about so I'm going to make a choice right now to not delve into the guts of java, but focus on its applications.

Also thanks to Goldberg for the idea.




Also I didnt realize Java had a mascot...

Duke the Java mascot



So Java was developed by Sun around 1990 (according to Wikipedia), December 1990 to be exact. Java really took off during the internet boom because the web had become a very interactive place, no longer being a stupid list of text that you read.

Now Java is known for its ability to work on all OSes. This leads me to my favorite programming joke.

"Saying Java is awesome is like saying anal sex is awesome, since it works on everyone"

So Java is a machine independent language, that means the code you write on one machine will work the same way on all other machines. How is this done? Basically the code is executed on a Java Virtual machine. This basically emulates a single platform that runs the same way on all computers. This used to be a big deal because a lot of times code that works one one machine will break on another, now using Java its as simple as downloading the right virtual machine.

Java used to be very prevalent in the nets but nowadays flash as pretty much taken over, at least on the outside. Many things still run Javascripts in the background, but all the visual stuff that the end user sees are all Flash based.

Where Java is really common is on cell phones because of the variety of cell phones there needs to be a singular language and Java fits the bill.

So yeah I could go on I guess, but talking about abstract things are boring.

oh and on a final note, our robot in robotics is going to be running Java this year!