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

Working with Java classes


As will be known by now, Clojure is not an object-orientated language. The Clojure team added several features to Clojure to ensure that Clojure can properly consume and create classes from the Java class library and other JVM libraries.

To create an instance of a class, two forms are supported. First, to do this, use new:

(def x (new java.util.ArrayList () ))

Here we define a variable that points to an ArrayList instance. By passing an empty list () method, we do not pass any parameter to its constructor. A different way to create an instance is to add a dot to the class name:

(def x (java.util.ArrayList. () ))

Note the dot added to ArrayList. There's no functional difference between the two ways.

Note

Think twice before using mutable collections in a Clojure program. Since Clojure is a functional programming language, it is usually a much better idea to use Clojure's immutable collections whenever possible.

To call methods on the instance of an object, you can prefix...