Java, Java, Java

Everyone is talking about Java. The driving force for this chatter is Java's simplicity and potential power. Java is programming language, and a language for the intranet and the World Wide Web (WWW). Java is a Write On one platform and Run on Many platforms (WORM) language. For network-friendly, platform-independent applications, Java (originally Oak) is an object oriented programming language. Java source code is compiled into a virtual machine code or bytecode. This makes the Java platform independent. It can be placed on a Web site, and executed on the client side on a PC-Intel, Mac, Motorola or UNIX-Solaris machine without recompiling. Sun Microsystems formally announced Java in May 1995. Java is the first language that has built-in capabilities for networking applications, in particular, creating dynamic Web pages. Java programs that run on the Internet Web pages are called applets. These applets are easily incorporated into Web pages. These applets are executed from homepages on remote Web sites. Java programs run interpretively on the client side. Java reduces development costs and speeds up the learning curve. Traditional client server development tools-such as Delphi, Power-Builder and Visual Basic-are losing ground to Java as a result. By the year-end of 1996, Java had moved ahead in use of both C and C++ and these application development tools.