Java – an introduction, Programming paradigms

 

Java – an introduction

In 1995, a new programming language was released, inspired by the well-known C++ and the lesser known Smalltalk. Java was the name of this new language, and it tried to fix most of the limitations its predecessors had. For example, one important feature of Java that made it popular was write once and run anywhere; that is, you could develop your code on a Windows machine and run it on a Linux or any other machine, all you needed was a JVM. It provided additional features such as garbage collection, which freed up the developer from needing to maintain memory allocation and deallocations; the Just in Time compiler (JIT) made Java intelligent and fast, and removing features such as pointers made it more secure. All the aforementioned features and the later addition of web support made Java a popular choice among developers. Around 22 years later, in a world where new languages come and disappear in a couple of years, Java version 10 has already been successfully launched and adapted by the community, which says a lot about the success of Java.

Java programming paradigms

What are programming paradigms? Since software development began, there have been different approaches to designing programing languages. For each programming language, we have a set of concepts, principles, and rules. Such a set of concepts, principles, and rules is called a programming paradigm. In theory, languages are considered to fall under one paradigm only, but, in practice, programming paradigms are mostly combined in one language. 

These are 

1.  imperative, 
2. object-oriented, 
3. declarative, and 
4. functional programming.