"Java isn't just for web sites. Java is a
programming language that lets you do almost anything you can do
with a traditional programming langauge like Fortran or C++.
However Java has learned from the mistakes of its
predecessors. It is considerably cleaner and easier to use than
those languages.
As a language Java is
Simple: Java has the bare bones functionality needed to
implement its rich feature set. It does not add lots of syntactic
sugar or unnecessary features.
Object-Oriented: Almost everything in Java is either a
class, a method or an object. Only the most basic primitive
operations and data types (int, for, while, etc.) are at a
sub-object level.
Platform Independent: Java programs are compiled to a
byte code format that can be read and run by interpreters on many
platforms including Windows 95, Windows NT, and Solaris 2.3 and
later.
Safe: Java code can be executed in an environment that
prohibits it from introducing viruses, deleting or modifying files,
or otherwise performing data destroying and computer crashing
operations.
High Performance: Java can be compiled on the fly with a
Just-In-Time compiler (JIT) to code that rivals C++ in speed.
Multi-Threaded: Java is inherently multi-threaded. A
single Java program can have many different things
processing independently and continuously." (Elliotte Rusty
Harold)