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

Apache Maven


Kotlin developers on the JVM often use ordinary build tools that are used generally in the JVM world and Java especially. Two popular build tools that Kotlin developers use are Gradle from Gradle Inc. and Maven by the Apache Software Foundation. Both Gradle and Maven can both manage dependencies and build projects. As we have already covered Gradle back in Chapter 4, Java Programming, when we developed a small Java application, we will use Apache Maven in this chapter.

Maven is a build tool that uses a XML build file for building a project. Maven closely follows the convention over configuration paradigm. If you can follow its conventions, you won't need to alter the build file too often, but things can get quite complex (or even immensely problematic) once you need to break free and need custom actions when building your project. For most popular actions plugins can be added to the system, that add new functionality and/or actions to the build process. It can be challenging...