Java was developed as a write-once-run-on-many language. Other languages were targeted at particular processors, but Java runs on any computer with the Java run time engine (JRE). In practice this means that software can be developed on a Windows PC then downloaded via the web to a Macintosh or Linux PC and run without modification. This was a bold and significant step for a computer language and has eliminated much of the tedious work that porting code to other architectures required.
The c# language is Microsofts clone of Java, much as JScript was Microsoft's clone of Javascript. There are differences between java and c# particularly with regard to scoping.
Meadowlark use Java for high end database projects, applications of artificial intelligence, and computer simulations.
Advantages of Java:
1. Smaller faster, cheaper, lighter computers for the desktop. They will be no larger than a DVD drive. They will be silent, and run free software, and much of this will be web based. They will use solid state disks, and large quantities of cheap memory.
2. More powerful mobile phones will largely replace traditional PCs. The screens of mobiles will occupy as much of the phone as physicallly possible. "Soft buttons will have largely replaced mechanical buttons in top of the range phones.
3. Sophisticated screen display technology will be available that will allow us to use bigger computer monitors in smaller less likely workplaces.
4. Micro-factories: places of work no bigger than a loft
extension, where budding entrepreneurs labour in their free time
"printing" products with 3D printers and selling their wares
by the internet.