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 (15 chapters)

Summary


We started by installing the Counterclockwise plugin in Eclipse IDE. While not as feature-rich yet as some other Eclipse plugins covered in this book, it served us quite well. We installed Leiningen, the most popular build tool in use by Clojure developers. As promised in the previous chapter, we also covered how to compile class files with and without using the Leiningen build tool. We even tried Leiningen's uberjar task that conveniently generates a JAR file containing all the dependencies. We created our first project where we explored the monads subject by applying test-driven development using the clojure.test unit testing framework. After this, we created a Luminus micro web framework project, based on a built-in template, that we imported to Eclipse IDE. We added a page that accepts text input and shows the entered text using the function that we created in the monads section.

The next language that we will cover is Kotlin. Kotlin is, like Java, a static, strongly typed programming...