10 Reasons to Learn Java Programming Language and Why Java is Best

Java is one of the best programming language created ever, and I am not
saying this, because I am a passionate Java developer, but Java has proved it
in last 20 years. Two decades is a big time for any Programming language, and
Java has gained strength every passing day. Though there are times, when Java
development slows down, but Java has responded well. Earlier with ground
breaking changes in form of Enum, Generics, and Autoboxing in Java 5,
performance improvement with Java 6, and Google's choice of language for
Android apps development, keeps Java as front line programming language. Many
graduate often ask me, which is the best programming language, which language
should we learn, shall I learn Java etc. Well, it depends upon definition of
your best programming language, if it's popularity then obviously Java outscore
every one, even C, which is there for almost 50 years. If it in terms of Job
opportunities, again Java outscore every one. You can get tons of Jobs
opportunity by learning Java programming language,
you can develop core Java based server side application, J2EE web and
enterprise applications, and can even go for Android based mobile application
development. So if you are not coming from C and C++ background, and want to
learn your first programming language, I will suggest to choose Java. In this
article, I will share my list of reason, and Why you should learn Java
programming and Why I think Java is best programming language created ever.

Why you should learn Java Programming
Language

Here is my list of 10 reason, which I tell anyone who ask my opinion
about learning Java, and whether Java is best programming language in terms of
opportunities, development and community support.

1) Java
is Easy to learn

Many would be surprised to see this one of the top reason of learning
Java, or considering it as best programming language, but it is. If you have
steep learning curve, it would be difficult to get productive in short span of
time, which is the case with most of professional project. Java has fluent
English like syntax with minimum magic characters e.g. Generics angle brackets, which
makes it easy to read Java program and learn quickly. Once a programmer is
familiar with initial hurdles with installing JDK and setting up PATH and understand
How Classpath works, it's
pretty easy to write program in Java.

2) Java
is an Object Oriented Programming Language

Another reason, which made Java popular is that it's an Object Oriented
Programming language. Developing OOPS application is much easier, and it also
helps to keep system modular, flexible and extensible. Once you have knowledge
of key OOPS concept like Abstraction, Encapsulation, Polymorphism and Inheritance, you can use all
those with Java. Java itself embodies many best practices and design pattern in
it's library. Java is one of the few close to 100% OOPS programming language.
Java also promotes use of SOLID and Object oriented design principles in form
of open source projects like Spring, which make sure your object dependency is
managed well by using dependency Injection principle.

3) Java
has Rich API

One more reason of Java programming language's huge success is it's Rich
API and most importantly it's highly visible, because come with Java
installation. When I first started Java programming, I used to code Applets and
those days Applets provides great animation capability, which amazes new
programmer like us, who are used to code in Turbo C++ editor. Java provides API
for I/O, networking, utilities, xml parsing, database connection, and almost
everything. Whatever left is covered by open source libraries like Apache
Commons, Google Guava and others.

4)
Powerful development tools e.g. Eclipse , Netbeans

Believe it or not, Eclipse and Netbeans has played huge role to make Java
one of the best programming language. Coding in IDE is pleasure, especially if
you have coded in DOS Editor or Notepad. They not only helps in code completion
but also provides powerful debugging capability, which is
essential for real world development. Integrated Development Environment (IDE)
made Java development much easier, faster and fluent. It's easy to search,
refactor and read code using IDEs. Apart from IDE, Java platform also has
several other tools e.g.. Maven and ANT for building Java applications,
decompilers, JConsole, Visual VM for monitoring Heap usage etc.

5) Great
collection of Open Source libraries

Open source libraries ensures that Java should be used everywhere.
Apache, Google, and other organization has contributed lot of great libraries,
which makes Java development easy, faster and cost effective. There are
framework like Spring, Struts, Maven, which
ensures that Java development follows best practices of software craftsmanship,
promotes use of design patterns and assisted Java developers to get there job
done. I always recommend to search for a functionality in Google, before
writing your own code. There is good chance that, it's already coded, tested
and available for ready to use.

6)
Wonderful community support

Community is the biggest strength of Java programming language and
platform. No matter, How good a language is, it wouldn't survive, if there is
no community to support, help and share there knowledge. Java has been very
lucky, it has lots of active forums, Stackoverflow, open source organizations
and several Java user group to help everything. There is community to help
beginners, advanced and even expert Java programmers. Java actually promotes taking
and giving back to community habit. Lots of programmers, who use open source,
contribute as commiter, tester etc. Expert programmer provides advice FREE at various
Java forums and stackoverflow. This is simply amazing and gives lot of
confidence to a newbie in Java.

7) Java
is FREE

People like FREE things, Don't you? So if a programmer want to learn a
programming language, or a organization wants to use a technology, COST is an
important factor. Since Java is free from start, i.e. you don't need to pay
anything to create Java application. This FREE thing also helped Java to become
popular among individual programmers, and among large organizations. Availability
of Java programmers is another big think, which makes organization to choose
Java for there strategic development.

8)
Excellent documentation support - Javadocs

When I first saw Javadoc, I was amazed. It's great piece of
documentation, which tells lot of things about Java API. I think without
Javadoc documentation, Java wouldn't be as popular, and it's one of the main
reason, Why I think Java is best programming language. Not every one has time
and intention to look at code to learn what a method do or how to use a class. Javadoc
made learning easy, and provide an excellent reference while coding in Java.
With advent of IDE, you don't even need to look Javadoc explicitly in browser,
but you can get all information in your IDE window itself.

9) Java is
Platform Independent

In 1990s, this was the main reason of Java's popularity. Idea of platform
independence is great, and Java's tag line "write once run
anywhere" was enticing enough to attract lots of new development in Java. This is
still one of the reason of Java being best programming language, most of Java
applications are developed in Windows environment and run in UNIX platform.

10) Java
is Everywhere

Yes, Java is everywhere, it's on desktop, it's on mobile, it's on card,
almost everywhere and so is Java programmers. I think Java programmer out
number any other programming language professional. Though I don't have any
data to back this up, but it's based on experience. This huge availability of
Java programmers, is another reason, why organization prefer to choose Java for
new development than any other programming language.

Having said that, programming is very big field and if you look at C and
UNIX, which is still surviving and even stronger enough to live another 20
years, Java also falls in same league. Though there are lot of talk about
functional programming, Scala and other JVM languages, but they need to go
a long way to match community, resources and popularity of Java. Also OOPS is
one of the best programming paradigm, and as long as it will be there Java will
remain solid.

Resources to learn Java programming

Now, if you decide to learn Java programming, here are couple of resources, which you can take a look. I personally suggest picking a book, because they are almost always well written and catered for beginners. I personally recommend Head First Java to beginners, that's great book to start, if you don't know much about Java. You can also take a look at official Java tutorials offered by Oracle. These tutorials are comprehensive and covered almost all important details of Java programming language. Further you can use Google along with your learning. If you need to understand a particular concept, term or any issue with Java, Google can point you to specific resource. There are lots of blogs, tutorial sites, and free video tutorials on internet to learn Java programming.



Recommend Java tutorials

Java SE tutorials

Javadoc for JDK 7

Recommended Java Books for beginners

Head First Java

Thinking in Java

Source:http://javarevisited.blogspot.com/2013/04/10-reasons-to-learn-java-programming.html