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Java is a platform independent language.  It uses a virtual machine that runs as an "operating system within an operating system" on different platforms.  Because of this virtual machine, Java programs can be written and compiled once, and then utilized in many environments.  Java code is passed to each virtual machine, which takes care translating it into instructions and commands that can be understood on whatever operating system the virtual machine happens to be installed on. It is a "fire-and-forget", "one-size-fits-all" IDE where you may code a project and that code will run without alteration on any platform. At least, that is what Java's creators aspire to. Rather than compiling ASCII source into machine code and instruction sets as C and C++ compilers do, the Java compiler converts ASCII source into "byte code". Byte code is an intermediary state between true binary machine code and code that would be run through an interpreter such as with scripting languages like JavaScript and VBScript. The topic is still disputed among various parties concerning whether Java is a truly compiled language or whether it should be considered an interpreted language through its virtual machine. It might be closer to the truth to say it falls into a gray area somewhere between compiled
stand-alone languages and interpreted ones.

Designed with adaptability and flexibiliity as a goal, Java is wired for platform independence. This makes it a great choice for distributed applications on the web. In contrast, applications written in C and C++ must be re-written and recompiled for each platform they are utilized on. Java's platform independence feature come at the expense of performance, since more system resources are required to support both the virtual machine and the client operating system it is running on.  In effect, you are running two operating systems simultaneously with Java.  Even so,
for applications that need to be quickly distributed across the internet or a wide variety of operating system platforms - Java presents an
excellent option to the developer. 

If you are just getting started in Java, you are probably most familiar with "applets", an implementation of Java that allows embedding a Java program into a web page.  While many times an applet is just what you want, a good deal of animation and other "fluff" that applets used to accomplish is being replaced by Macromedia's FLASH MX and ActionScript.  These technologies utilize vector graphics and servers to do everything from animating images on a web page and creating games to creating full-blown online databases using combinations of FLASH™, ActionScript™ and ColdFusion™.  What is moving this trend is not only the blazing fast performance, smoothness and quick load times of MacroMedia's vector graphics, but also dramatically reduced development times.  In contrast to primitive development tools, Macromedia's development products present an intuitive and easy to use interface and many pre-defined functions and methods that the developer can utilize with the mere click of a mouse. Amazingly, for animations and simple web projects, no typing of source is even necessary! Entire expressions can be built by clicking on pre-assembled code snippets and selected objects and property sheets. This dramatically increases the speed with which a project can be developed, and therefore exponentially reduces the cost of developing an application. ( By the way, Macromedia also makes a product called "Director",  which allows you to easily create animations, programs and games and then export the projects as Java code! )

In addition to creating platform independent applications and internet-savvy applets, Java is highly effective for programming small, embedded systems and hardware devices.  It was originally designed to do just that in its conceptual phase (known as the "Stealth Project"). Java code can
be optimized to compete with C++ and Visual Basic, but this comes at the cost of losing its platform independence.  C++ programmers will have no trouble learning Java, as it is about 80% C++.  Many times snippets of C++ code can be pasted into a Java compiler and they will actually compile without a hitch! This is due to the fact that Java was developed from C++, and so shares a great deal of the attribute and structure of its more powerful parent. As a matter of fact, if you are fairly fluent in C++, you can run through basic console tutorials very quickly using your C++ knowledge. Then you may wish to go directly to the Abstract Windows Toolkit (AWT).  This too can be compared to Microsoft's MFC which you learned in C++. In many respects, the logic and concepts are identical and only the names have been changed. Examples:

MFC:  Calls it a "Message handler", mapping a message ID to a message handler.
AWT: Calls it an "Event handler", mapping an event to an event handler.

Remember what we've already established, in this industry no one is innocent and everyone's a pirate reverse engineering, expanding, and redeploying everyone else's technology. Einstein is quoted as saying himself that, "The secret to creativity is in hiding all of your sources." It appears most software and hardware developers embrace Einstein's philosophy with relish. If you haven't seen it, check out the movie "The
Pirates of Silicon Valley". It is in many places fictional, but it does a fairly decent job of telling the story of how we got where we are today
through so many dirty deeds of swashbuckling software and hardware piracy. Still, we as a society benefit from this chaos and the competition it engenders drives technological evolution and revolution.

All you need to learn to program in Java is available for FREE.  It will cost you nothing.  In this aspect, it embraces the ideals and has a large following among those in the open source community. It is available, pre-installed on most versions of Linux. I use Linux Fedora Core 5 on my laptop and desktop multi-boots, and the OS comes with excellent free Java development tools. For my XP and 2003 partitions, I use the freely downloadable JDK from Sun and a free visual interface to the JDK called "Forte". Whether Linux or Windows, there is nothing to buy. Learning
and developing in Java won't cost you a dime. Alternatively, if you absolutely want to fork over some cash, you will find many Java tools and compilers for sale. Google it!

Unlike C++, Java does not use pointers. (In actuality, it does, as you will see if you know C++, but it hides this implementation from you with a bit of VooDoo.) Java's System.gc() method will take care of cleaning up memory, so unlike C++, your classes will not need destructors and you don't have to worry about setting dangling pointers to NULL or calling delete on objects instantiated on the heap. 

Materials you will need to learn and develop in Java:

1. Any simple text editor or word processor.
2. Sun's free Java SDK 1.3.1 or above (a FREE download).
3. Optionally - Sun's free Forte 3.0 Community Edition.  An excellent free GUI visual development tool for the SDK.

Note: Did I mention that these items are FREE?    :)  Free.  Free.  Free.  They are all free!

SDK - You can write and compile Java with just the SDK if you are a right-wing whacko, sadistic, nazi text-based freak with no life and too much time who thinks web developers should never have a connection faster than 14.4 Kbps and that the internet should be nothing more than a plain, ASCII text database without any graphics or cool embedded objects, whatsoever. I actually have friends who are like this and I feel sorry for them. Still, if you were stranded on a deserted island with nothing but a primitive computer, a simple text editor, a command console, and the JRE and JDK - you could still develop Java software! Yeah baby! It's called basic survival...  :-) 

Of course, there's the nicer way, the GUI, the pretty colors...  It's much more comforting to binge on aesthetically pleasing menus and point and click your way into glory among soothing pastel images and color coded key words. Ah, the comforts of civilization. So you may want to use:

Forte -  Forte is a GUI visual interface, that with the JDK makes a pretty decent IDE.  Install it after you have installed the Java SDK and you will have a beautiful, graphical, intuitive programming experience that will make you weep with tears of joy and forget all about your dark, lonely, and bleak days of staring endlessly into the blackness of a command prompt on some archaic terminal emulator.  Oh Happy!  Happy!  Happy!

There are but a few other things ye need to know, ye land lubber:

Javascript - Not to be confused with Java. Netscape invented the JavaScript programming language, and while it looks like Java sometimes,
it is most definitely not! JavaScript is strictly a scripting language interpreted through web browsers with no stand-alone capability.

Applets - typically, the Virtual Machine for applets is built into the browser, separate from the VM used by the OS for Java Applications.

That's about as much as I can type at one sitting, so we'll call this the "Introduction" page and leave it at that. Download the JRE, JDK and Forte
from Sun and install them in the same order. If you want to be able to compile Java programs in any directory, you will need to add the absolute path to the "javac.exe" command from the JDK to your Windows PATH variable if you are on a Microsoft operating system. You can add it under "Environment Variables" on the "Advanced" tab for "My Computer". In Linux, just make a soft link to it and throw it in the development folder, "etc", or wherever you like. After this, you will be ready to move on. Welcome to the wonderful world of Java Programming!

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