10 Reasons to Learn Java Programming Language

Java is one of the most popular programming languages today. It is the third most popular programming language, according to the TIOBE Index for November 2021.

Java is used to create customized programs that are light and quick, as well as in complex projects. If you are an Android developer or app designer, you may have to work with Java often as it’s compatible with almost all devices and platforms (macOS, Windows, Linux).

For those who are planning to learn a programming language, this article highlights why learning Java should be their first choice. Let’s take a look.

Why Learn Java?

Here are some of the most common benefits of learning Java for web and mobile developers.

1. Inflated demand

As per Statista, Java is one of the most-used programming languages among developers worldwide. A majority of Android apps use Java as their primary backend language.

With an increasing demand for Android-based smartphones, Android app development is also rising. Hence, more and more app development companies are looking for developers who are experts in Java.

2. Good salary

Because of the extensive use of the language, Java developers are amongst the highest-paid professionals in the IT business. If we go by the statistics from Glassdoor, a Java developer in the USA earns $93,118 annually on average.

3. Beginner-friendly and easier to learn

One of the biggest factors in learning Java is that it doesn’t have a steep learning curve. It will be easy to get to grips with Java syntax if you are familiar with its predecessors, such as C++ or C#.

Java also has powerful memory management facilities, unlike its forerunners. Memory allocation, reallocation, and deallocation are all handled automatically by the Runtime Environment via a built-in component called the Garbage Collector. This automatically reduces the responsibilities of a developer and improves program quality.

Learning any new programming language can be a daunting task. From the syntax to the structure and the programming interface, there are many things that a developer needs to learn.

Java runs on the concept of Object-Oriented Programming, and since it’s a higher-level programming language, beginners usually find it easy to learn and understand. Having said so, this also depends upon each developer’s individual learning capacity.

4. An abundance of resources to learn Java

You can easily learn everything about Java through abundant online courses and resources. You can learn Java at CodeGym from scratch, where a variety of practice sessions are available. It also gives you the ability to validate your code right away, so you can definitely expedite your process of learning Java.

Apart from that, there are several coding boot camps specifically for the Java programming language. This makes studying extremely easy for anyone who wants to learn Java.

Since Java is an established coding language, you can also expect to get your queries resolved on the StackOverflow community and may also use open source libraries from Github.

5. A huge online community of Java users

StackOverflow, Java Forums, and other online learning forums are examples that the Java community is ever-growing. There are also many resources on the internet for Java, such as GitHub and StackOverflow to answer all your queries and address errors.

You can also use and learn from content generated by the community. A good example is the Java blog at CodeGym where your peers post useful articles to help you brush up on your Java skills.

6. Cross-platform language with a modest set of restrictions

You can work on Java using a PC, mobile devices, and Internet of Things devices and technologies, among other platforms. In fact, Java Virtual Machine (JVM) also lies at the core of Android mobile application development.

Hence, if you want to make a career in Android application development, understanding and learning Java should be the first step towards it.

7. Many publicly available libraries

Coding using Java has its own set of advantages. The key one is the availability of various open-source libraries that you can use in your applications. So, for many modules, you may not even need to code from scratch.

Instead, you can just use the open-source code, and integrate ready functionality into your code.

Some of the open-source libraries having support for Java include Apache Commons, Google Guava and many more.

8. Java has a rich API

Java has a large Application Programming Interface (API), such as Java Stream and others, which is handy for building apps without necessarily knowing how they are implemented on the inside. Almost everything is done with these APIs, including networking, I/O, databases, media, XML parsing, voice synthesis, and so on.

So, suppose if you want to include voice synthesis in your project, you don’t need to know the entire code that went behind this feature, rather, you just have to include its API in your code. And voila, the feature is integrated!

9. Java offers powerful development tools

Java has a plethora of Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) that provide programmers with a variety of features for software development. Debugging, syntax highlighting, code completion, language support, automatic refactoring, and other features in these IDEs make developing in Java easier and faster.

As per the IDC industry analyst Al Hilwa, Java was chosen by over 90% of Fortune 500 organizations to develop a large number of backend apps.

Java is supported by Android studio for Android developers, Eclipse, Netbeans, Intellij IDE, and Visual Studio Code.

10. Most of all, Java is free!

One of the reasons Java is so popular among individual programmers is that it is free to download under the Oracle Binary Code License (BCL). This implies that Java is free for development and testing environments, but a nominal price is required for commercial use.