Java is one most popular high-level object-oriented programming languages widely used across the globe. Today, software engineers have made the proper procedure to use this popular object-oriented programming language. Java is a set of programs used for developing a software application and deployed into several computing environments. The best way to use Java is it’s designed to make distributed computing a breeze.
Today there are several tools available to improve the efficiency of Java developers. Java is used for general purposes like desktop, mobile, web, and enterprise applications. It’s not only a language but an ecosystem that covers almost everything one needs for Java development. It adds:
- Java Development Kit: Using a standard Notebook app, one can write and run Java code.
- Java Runtime Environment: The software development tool contains a standalone java virtual machine, configuration tool, and Java standard library.
- Integrated Development Environment: The tools help run, edit and compile code using Eclipse, Intellij Idea, and Netbeans.
We can find Java anywhere as it’s a primary language for Android development. Nowadays, you’ll discover web applications, governmental websites, and big data companies using Java for their web and app development needs. Despite the growing popularity of python and Go, Java is not yet outdated and comes under the top list of development.
Let’s check out what change Java introduced to the programming world:
- Flexibility: More people are adopting object-oriented programming, which commonly is accepted practice today.
- Applets: Years ago, Java introduced applets that provide interactive elements specially introduced for visualization and teaching. It took the attention of many programmers for the development of HTML5, Flash, and Other JavaScript Courses.
- Test-driven development: It’s no longer an experiment practice but the standard way to develop software.
Benefits of Java development
Object-oriented programming
An OOP concept where you do not have to define the type of data and structure but set its function. The data structure creates an object to manipulate the relationship between different things.
Advantage of using OOP
- Prevents errors
- Easily reuse the objects
- Make programs organized
- Offer simple maintenance
High-Level language with simple syntax
As Java is a high-level language, it acts similar to human Language. In low-level Language, it resembles machine code, high-level Language, and converts using compiler or interpreters. It simplifies Language by making it easier to read, write and maintain.
Shortage of security risks
One may encounter the notion of Java using secure Language. It does not protect you from vulnerabilities but saves you from common security flaws. Also, the security manager creates applications that specify access rules. It allows running Java apps in a sandbox with eliminating risks of harm.
The standard for enterprise computing
The greatest asset of Java is the Enterprise application. It supports libraries with building blocks of enterprise systems helping developers create any function a company requires. Java is comparatively cheaper to maintain and does not need any specific infrastructure.
Platform independency
It’s written once, run anywhere programming Language. It means one can create a java program and run the application on another platform. Windows compiles it to bytecode and run the application with supporting a Java virtual machine. JVM serves as an abstraction level between the two code and hardware.
Distributed language for easy remote collaboration
Java is designed to have an integrated mechanism for sharing data and programs among multiple computers for improved efficiency and performance. It allows bringing all Java benefits with platform-independent and object-oriented programming. It supports distributed methodology for sharing objects between programs that are written in different languages.
Some of the Java development tools for web developers
- NetBeans
It’s an IDE designed for Java and is popular mainly among researchers and used by organizations like NASA, EU, and NATO research agencies. NetBeans helps the operating system to run Java and use other programming languages. It’s used to build Ant projects and set up to use Maven. It’s popular open-source use by several Java developers.
- Android studio
It’s used for building desktop and web apps. If you use Android Studio, then it would be based on IntelliJ IDEA with android specific refactoring. Android Studio is used to catch performance and compatibility problems and much more. Today, Java is used for many mobile apps and compiled your app with Android Studio with publishing it directly on Google Play Store.
- Eclipse tool
Eclipse Java development tool (JDT) is a plugin used to implement a Java IDE supporting the development of any java app. The plugin includes Eclipse, which adds java project nature and Java perspective to the Eclipse workbench. It is used in computer programming and contains a base workspace with an extensible plugin system for customizing the environment. The features of the Eclipse cover:
- Coding shortcuts
- Refactoring
- Diffing Files
- Organizing Imports
- Formatting Source Code
- IntelliJ idea tool
IntelliJ is a rich set of built-in tools for analyzing your code and connecting symbols across project files and languages. It provides in-depth coding assistance, clever error analysis, quick navigation, and, of course, refactorings. It includes features like:
- Autocomplete
- Fuzzy Search
- Navigate through files and directory
- Run/Compile
- Integrate with source code versioning
- Install extensions
- Fold
- Pinpoint
It’s an application performance management tool for large-scale distributed systems written in PHP or Java. It monitors applications without changing a single line of code. In real-time, Pinpoint is installed to track the transaction flow between different types of components. It provides an overview of what areas one can cause problems and from where your bottlenecks are.
- JUnit
It’s an open-source testing framework that integrates with popular Java IDEs and Maven, Gradle, Ant, and Jenkins. It is linked with JAR at compile time and requires Java 8 to compile the versions of JDK. There are mainly three sub-projects in JUnit version 5.
- JUnit Platform
- JUnit Jupiter
- JUnit Vintage
- Maven
It’s one of the project management tools used for java projects. It’s used in building, reporting, and centralizing docs in one place. Maven follows the standard way to create projects by using clear definitions. This means the developer needs to write all commands by themselves and build a structure more simply.
- Gradle
It’s used to build an automation tool that does not use XML files instead of a domain-specific language. It usually uses smaller configuration files with less clutter. Suppose the Java plugin needs complete Java, which is helpful for the complex database. It tends to work faster and offers advanced analysis and debugging services.
- SpotBugs
To get a successor of FindBugs, we have Spotbugs which is no longer maintained. It’s used for static analysis to check for more than four hundred bugs available in Java Code. It’s used as standalone integration with Maven, Ant, Gradle, and Eclipse. It’s used to add new detectors through plugins. It’s mentioned on the SpotBugs homepage, which shows FB-contrib and find-sec-bugs and works with two popular plugins to write software with fewer bugs.
- Spring
Spring is a popular framework used as a vast ecosystem that evolves daunting for a beginning java developer. It’s used for developing several projects with making an easy start out with Spring and building standalone production-grade applications.
- Spark
Spark tool helps to develop an expressive web app at minimal boilerplate code. It’s meant to create rapid and excellent microservices work. It’s a framework used to create a web app in Java and Kotlin with minimal effort.
- Tomcat
Apache Tomcat offers an HTTP web server environment for Java code. It comes with an open-source Java servlet, java expression language, java WebSocket technology, and JavaServer pages. It’s lightweight and used for large-scale apps.
Wrap up
This was all about Java developers’ tools in 2021, making them progressively important with improving their profitability. As Java is used widely over the years, there are many development tools available at an accessible cost for developers, which make their work easier and error-free. We hope you can choose the right development tool for Java to build, code coverage, and code review.
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