Chapter 10: Network Programming in Java

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Java Language Overview

In this chapter, we investigate network programming in the object-oriented language Java™. Java is a very interesting object-oriented language that has a wide multitude of uses, outside of its focus as Web-glue. As we’ll see in this chapter, network programming can be very simple in the Java language. All code for this chapter can be found on the companion CD-ROM at /software/ch10.

Origin of the Java Language

The Java language was created by James Gosling of Sun Microsystems™ in the early 1990s as a new type of language for a new world. Java created new possibilities for an Internet connected world, and much to the chagrin of Microsoft, is still the most popular language for Internet applications. Java is not only object oriented, but also supports the development of distributed and portable applications. What made Java so interesting in the mid 1990s was that a Java application could be written on one platform (such as Windows), but then be run on another platform with no changes. This made it possible for developers to write Web-based applications that could be executed by peer computers on the Internet without having to worry about their target architecture. In some cases, it’s not always this easy, but, overall, the goal of Java was reached and the popularity of Java is a testament to this.

Java Language Heritage

Java has a large number of influences that include a variety of languages in different domains. James Gosling cites on his Web site [Gosling] that Simula was one of the most important influences because it introduced the concept of a class (one of the first object-oriented languages). Other influences include Oak (an internal Sun Microsystems language project), Scheme, Smalltalk-80, Objective-C, Cedar (a Pascal-like language), C++, and Ada. These represent an eclectic mix of languages, but the resulting Java language is clean and easy to understand.

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