Book Image

Introduction to JVM Languages

Book Image

Introduction to JVM Languages

Overview of this book

Anyone who knows software development knows about the Java Virtual Machine. The Java Virtual Machine is responsible for interpreting Java byte code and translating it into actions. In the beginning, Java was the only programming language used for the JVM. But increasing complexity of the language and the remarkable performance of the JVM created an opening for a new generation of programming languages. If you want to build a strong foundation with the Java Virtual Machine and get started with popular modern programming languages, then this book is for you. The book will begin with a general introduction of the JVM and its features, which are common to the JVM languages, helping you get abreast with its concepts. It will then dive into explaining languages such as Java, Scala, Clojure, Kotlin, and Groovy and will show how to work with each language, their features, use cases, and pros and cons. By writing example projects in those languages and focusing on each language’s strong points, it will help you find the programming language that is most appropriate for your particular needs. By the end of the book, you will have written multiple programs that run on the Java Virtual Machine and know about the differences between the various languages.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
Title Page
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Preface

JVM implementations


It's important to note that this book focuses on JVM implementations compatible with Oracle's Java SE (Standard Edition) 8 (and higher) platform only. This version can be installed on desktop computers, servers, and many single-board computers (including all the models of the popular credit-card-sized Raspberry Pi). We will use Oracle's implementation in this book, but both the open source OpenJDK and IBM's own J9 Java SE implementations of the same version should work equally well.

The Java platform as published by Google on Android phones and tablets is not covered in this book at all. One of the reasons is that the Java version used on Android is based on an older version of Java. While progress has been made to make Android's version of the platform more up to date, it still doesn't have all the features of Oracle's Java SE 8, and it requires different compilers and tools. Another reason is that Google omitted a lot of the Java SE APIs and replaced them with their own unique, incompatible APIs. Some of the languages covered in this book can be used with Android, however. Kotlin, in particular, is a very popular choice for modern Android development. This use case will not be explored in this book, though.