The Java Platform
A platform is the hardware or software environment in which a program runs. The Java platform differs from most other platforms in that it’s a software-only platform that runs on top of other, hardware-based platforms. Most other platforms are described as a combination of hardware and operating system.
The Java platform has two components:
The Java Virtual Machine (Java VM)
The Java Application Programming Interface (Java API)
The JVM. It’s the base for the Java platform and is ported onto various hardware-based platforms.
The Java API is a large collection of ready-made software components that provide many useful capabilities, such as graphical user interface (GUI) widgets. The Java API is grouped into libraries (PACKAGES) of related components.
As a platform-independent environment, Java can be a bit slower than native code. However, smart compilers, well-tuned interpreters, and just-in-time bytecode compilers can bring Java’s performance close to that of native code without threatening portability.
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