Introducing the basics of Java

Java was created by Sun Microsystems in 1991. The first public version was released 5 years later. The main purpose of Java was to be portable and highly performant in internet applications. Unlike C++, Java is platform independent. The JVM ensures any architecture and operating system's portability.

Figure 9.1 shows the compilation chain for Java. We can observe that the Java compiler doesn't produce an executable but a bytecode. JVM will run this bytecode to run the software.

Figure 9.1 – Java compilation chain

We recommend reading the Packt book Java Programming for Beginners, written by Mark Lassof, to learn the characteristics of this language in detail. In this chapter, we will talk about the factors that will affect the performance of HFT. As we described for C++, one critical component is the memory management structure. Unlike C++, where the developer must handle memory manually, Java has a garbage...