Where is Java used? 10 projects for which you can love her

A common question among those who are just about to learn programming and are about to make a choice in favor of Java: where and how can this language be used? The general phrase “anywhere” is unlikely to satisfy interest. Therefore, we suggest looking at the rating of Java among other programming languages, its advantages and main areas of application.

Place of Java among other languages

First, a little history. Java was born 24 years ago as a response to the need for a platform-independent language. In other words, a language for creating software that can be built into any device: desktop PCs, household appliances, and subsequently mobile devices. This, as well as constant improvements in frequent releases ( the current version of Java is 12 ), allowed it to quickly spread and “take over the world.” Today Java dominates in the development of corporate applications, websites for large e-commerce projects, and mobile applications. There are over 10 million Java developers in the world and over 3 billion devices running Java. This language is the undisputed leader among dozens of others. According to the TIOBE rating, in which languages ​​are ranked by the number of search queries on the portals Wikipedia, Google, YouTube and others, Java ranks first with a share of 16% ( May results ), several percent ahead of the C language and twice as fast as C++ and Python.

Key Benefits of Java

The main advantage of Java is the “written once, works everywhere” principle. This means that software written on one platform will run on other devices. In principle, Java is literally capable of “singing from every iron”: it is used to create applications for mobile devices, remote processors, wireless modules, sensors, and in general - almost any electrical devices. Adaptability is one of the reasons Twitter moved to the JVM. Java is one of the most popular languages ​​on GitHub based on the number of commits. The language is in demand thanks to a huge selection of libraries for any task. Well, the multimillion-dollar community is constantly increasing their number. Thus, Java is constantly being developed by both the creators of the language and its “users”. Thanks to the variety of libraries, this language is flexible, so it is perfect for implementing new functions. This is valuable for both large corporations and smaller companies. Thus, the flexibility of the language helped Spotify build a set of modules for developing Apollo microservices . It is impossible to list all the brands that use Java. So we can limit ourselves to a few top ones: Java is actively used to build the server part. At Amazon, almost the entire “internal kitchen” runs in Java; Oracle used Java even before its acquisition of Sun Microsystems; even the official Pentagon website uses Java. This language also plays a big role in supporting the Netflix service. Their infrastructure runs on Linux and their video encoding runs on Windows machines. Thanks to Java's many open source tools, monitoring and updating data across different environments becomes much easier. International fintech company LMAX uses Java to ensure stock exchange transactions occur with minimal delays. In general, many of the largest companies write the backend in Java to address security, portability, and performance issues. Sounds good, but can you do anything really cool with Java? And how. Here are just 10 of the hundreds of interesting programming features in Java :)

1. Android development

The fact that Google once chose Java for Android development certainly fueled interest in this language among developers. Today it is the most popular operating system, and almost all mobile applications for it are written in Java.

2. Cloud projects

Migration to the cloud is an irreversible process in the global market. Companies are transferring everything to cloud platforms: from data warehouses and individual services to the entire IT infrastructure. And the most popular programming language for corporate development in the cloud has become Java. Last year, the independent organization Cloud Foundry Foundation (CFF) conducted a survey of 600 IT professionals and found that 58% of respondents use Java to develop enterprise applications in the cloud. Java is used to create application servers in the cloud, network programming interface, etc. Java is needed not so much for developing new applications in the cloud, but to ensure that the application will work equally well in the modern “platform mix” of the cloud, mobile and desktop devices.

3. Virtual and augmented reality

Another connection between Java and the cloud is AR/VR development. Many mobile applications (including for Android) with augmented / virtual reality technology are located in the cloud. And there are many more of them than it seems: travel and gaming applications, social networks, applications in the fields of fashion and beauty, education, etc.

4. Software tools

It was Java that was used to create popular software development tools: IntelliJ Idea, Eclipse, Netbeans. Plus SAP business objects, Jira issue tracking system (which also doubles as a project management system) and much more.

5. Working with Big Data

There is an opinion that Python and R are more suitable for working with big data. But data analytics is a separate planet. Different languages ​​are used for different tasks, Java being one of them. In particular, for the implementation of Hadoop (a file system and a set of tools for data processing) and Kafka (a distributed message broker software for displaying real-time data streams, collecting big data and analyzing it). Java has a number of libraries and frameworks designed for working with Big Data. For example, Weka , Rapid Miner , JSAT , Java Machine Learning Library - Java-ML , Java Data Mining Package - JDMP and others.

6. Self-driving cars

In order for self-driving cars to be safe, it is necessary to work out to the smallest nuances how the “computer” solves problems that seem elementary to humans. For example, determining the type of object, distance, state (moving / standing still), face recognition. This is where Java programming plays an important role. There are quite a lot of tutorials that will help you understand the essence of the issue.

7. “Robomedicine”

Chatbots in telemedicine (as in other areas) are generally not new. But robot doctors are our near future. Thanks to the built-in Internet of Things technologies, doctors will be able to perform simple manipulations without visiting the patient: measure temperature and pressure, listen to heart rhythm. And someday robots will come to the aid of ordinary doctors. A couple of years ago, the Chinese robot Xiaoyi, equipped with artificial intelligence, successfully completed the medical license exam, scoring 465 out of 600 points. Researchers from Beijing and Tsinghua universities spent a year “filling” the robot’s knowledge base with the contents of dozens of reference books and textbooks on medicine. And, as we see, it was successful! And in any other field, robotics is no less in demand. For example, in art: programmer Dan Royer created an art robot called Makelangelo, which draws posters.

8. Game development

Many popular games are written in Java, and many of them are familiar to everyone. Around the beginning of the 2000s, the era of the heyday of Java games began, at the same time RuneScape, Gangstar, Zuma and many others appeared. The “star” projects in Java remain the video game Assassin's Creed and Minecraft, which is still relevant. The latter is also a strong hook on Java: to write plugins for Minecraft, you need to know Java, and then there is nothing else left but to create other programs in it. Why is Java an attractive language for game development? Firstly, because the Open JavaFX (OpenJFX) graphics software package makes it easier to create the visuals that are so important to gamers. Secondly, there are specialized libraries for game development, for example, Lightweight Java Game Library (LWJGL) . Thirdly, Java games can be played on any device. If you are interested in this language for game development, you can read specialized forums, or even better, find out what it’s like to be a game developer in practice. Start with the simplest thing - complete several task projects in the “Games” section of JavaRush.

9. Special effects in the film industry

With Java you can go much further in creating visuals. The largest film special effects companies use Java to develop software-based wonders. For example, Industrial Light and Magic , which participated in the creation of visual effects for “The Avengers”, “Captain Marvel”, “Thor”, “Transformers”, “Star Wars” and other blockbusters with millions of fans around the world.

10. Space developments

NASA uses Java for a number of cool applications. For example, World Wind - software development kit (SDK). It provides close-up views of any part of the Earth using the Landsat satellite and data from the Space Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM). The 3D visualization is somewhat reminiscent of Google Earth, only everything is written entirely in Java. The range of Java programs written at NASA is wide: from infrastructure applications to user support services and analytical tools. As the “local” developers emphasized , thanks to Java you can create multi-platform, productive, easy-to-understand solutions. And at the same time not expensive in terms of the software development cycle.

And that's just the cream on the cake

There are dozens and hundreds of projects in which Java programming can be applied. The popularity of the language is growing, and so is the demand for developers. What project would you like to work on?