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

Summary


In this chapter, we covered a lot of technologies. We installed the Scala IDE plugin for Eclipse IDE so that we could write Scala code in Eclipse IDE and enjoy many of Eclipse's features. To build the project, we installed SBT. We installed the sbteclipse plugin for SBT because Scala IDE does not have built-in support for SBT. SBTEclipse creates and updates Scala IDE projects that use an SBT build file.

We learned about the Actor model, a model where various actors send messages to each other. Each actor has a single method that handles all the messages. Instead of communicating directly with actor instances, actor references called ActorRef instances are used. If you use ActorRef instances, the code wouldn't care much whether an actor is running locally or remotely on a network. We wrote a unit test using a DSL to test the internals of an actor. Finally, we wrote the main program that used ask-pattern and Future objects to wait for replies.

In the next chapter, we will take a detailed...