Vincent van der Leun - Introduction to JVM Languages

• 1: Java Virtual Machine
  • b'Chapter 1: Java Virtual Machine'
  • b'JVM implementations'
  • b'Why develop on\xc3\x82\xc2\xa0JVM?'
  • b'Popular use cases'
  • b'JVM concepts'
  • b'Java editions'
  • b'Other languages on JVM'
  • b'Summary'

• 2: Developing on the Java Virtual Machine
  • b'Chapter 2: Developing on the Java Virtual Machine'
  • b'JDK'
  • b'Class organization with\xc3\x82\xc2\xa0packages'
  • b'Java Class Library'
  • b'Running JVM applications on the command line'
  • b'Eclipse IDE'
  • b'Summary'

• 3: Java
  • b'Chapter 3: Java'
  • b'OOP in Java'
  • b'Writing Java code'
  • b'Style guide'
  • b'Quiz'
  • b'Summary'

• 4: Java Programming
  • b'Chapter 4: Java Programming'
  • b'Configuring Eclipse IDE'
  • b'Creating a\xc3\x82\xc2\xa0web service in Java'
  • b'Summary'

• 5: Scala
  • b'Chapter 5: Scala'
  • b'Installing Scala'
  • b'Scala's Read-Eval-Print-Loop shell'
  • b'Functional versus imperative programming'
  • b'Scala language syntax and rules'
  • b'OOP in Scala'
  • b'Scala's standard library'
  • b'Functional programming in Scala'
  • b'Quiz'
  • b'Summary'

• 6: Scala Programming
  • b'Chapter 6: Scala Programming'
  • b'Scala IDE for the Eclipse plugin'
  • b'SBT'
  • b'Creating an Akka project'
  • b'Summary'

• 7: Clojure
  • b'Chapter 7: Clojure'
  • b'Installing Clojure'
  • b'Clojure's\xc3\x82\xc2\xa0interactive shell (REPL)'
  • b'Clojure\xc3\x82\xc2\xa0language'
  • b'Working with Java classes'
  • b'Managing states with agents'
  • b'Style guide'
  • b'Quiz'
  • b'Summary'

• 8: Clojure Programming
  • b'Chapter 8: Clojure Programming'
  • b'The Counterclockwise plugin for\xc3\x82\xc2\xa0Eclipse IDE'
  • b'Leiningen's build tool'
  • b'Creating executable programs in Clojure'
  • b'Creating a new Counterclockwise project'
  • b'Exploring monads by applying test-driven development'
  • b'The Luminus web framework'
  • b'Summary'

• 9: Kotlin
  • b'Chapter 9: Kotlin'
  • b'Installing Kotlin'
  • b'Kotlin's REPL interactive shell'
  • b'Kotlin language fundamentals'
  • b'OOP in Kotlin'
  • b'Procedural programming in Kotlin'
  • b'Style guide'
  • b'Quiz'
  • b'Summary'

• 10: Kotlin Programming
  • b'Chapter 10: Kotlin Programming'
  • b'Kotlin for the Eclipse IDE plugin'
  • b'Apache Maven'
  • b'Creating a JavaFX desktop GUI application'
  • b'Summary'

• 11: Groovy
  • b'Chapter 11: Groovy'
  • b'Installing Groovy'
  • b'Groovy Language'
  • b'Groovy Development Kit (GDK)'
  • b'Dynamic and static programming'
  • b'Quiz'
  • b'Summary'

• 12: Groovy Programming
  • b'Chapter 12: Groovy Programming'
  • b'Installing the Groovy Eclipse plugin'
  • b'Apache Ivy and IvyDE'
  • b'Creating and configuring the project'
  • b'Java Database Connectivity (JDBC)'
  • b'Generating XML using MarkupBuilder'
  • b'The Vert.x microservice platform'
  • b'Summary'

• 13: Other JVM languages
  • b'Chapter 13: Other JVM languages'
  • b'Oracle Nashorn'
  • b'Jython (Python)'
  • b'JRuby (Ruby)'
  • b'Frege (Haskell)'
  • b'Ceylon'
  • b'Summary'

• 14: Quiz Answers
  • b'Chapter 14: Quiz Answers'
  • b'Chapter 3: Java'
  • b'Chapter 5: Scala'
  • b'Chapter 7: Clojure'
  • b'Chapter 9: Kotlin'
  • b'Chapter 11: Groovy'

Java Virtual Machine ( JVM ) is a modern platform on which you can develop and deploy software. As the name implies, it was originally created to power applications written in the Java language. However, it didn't take language designers long to realize that they could not only run their languages on JVM, but also take advantage of its features and extensive class library.

Sun Microsystems released Java and the first JVM implementation in 1995. With its focus on Internet applications, Java quickly became popular. It was also designed from the ground up to run anywhere. Its initial goal was to run on set-top boxes, but when Sun Microsystems found out the market was not ready at that time yet, they decided to bring the platform to desktop computers as well. To make all those use cases possible, Sun invented their own binary executable format and called it Java bytecode. To run programs compiled to Java bytecode, a JVM implementation must be installed on the system.

This book will help you get started with five most popular languages that target JVM. By learning the language fundamentals and writing code yourself, you will be able to find the language that best suits you, your team, and your projects.

Before we dive into the Java Development Kit ( JDK ) and Java Class Library in the next chapter, we will look at some practical points first. With so many competing programming languages and platforms available today, it makes sense to first take a detailed look at what JVM has to offer to developers. Therefore, we will cover the following topics:

It's important to note that this book focuses on JVM implementations compatible with Oracle's Java SE (Standard Edition) 8 (and higher) platform only. This version can be installed on desktop computers, servers, and many single-board computers (including all the models of the popular credit-card-sized Raspberry Pi). We will use Oracle's implementation in this book, but both the open source OpenJDK and IBM's own J9 Java SE implementations of the same version should work equally well.

The Java platform as published by Google on Android phones and tablets is not covered in this book at all. One of the reasons is that the Java version used on Android is based on an older version of Java. While progress has been made to make Android's version of the platform more up to date, it still doesn't have all the features of Oracle's Java SE 8, and it requires different compilers and tools. Another reason is that Google omitted a lot of the Java SE APIs and replaced them with their own unique, incompatible APIs. Some of the languages covered in this book can be used with Android, however. Kotlin, in particular, is a very popular choice for modern Android development. This use case will not be explored in this book, though.