Introduction

The IBM® implementation of the Java™ platform provides development tools and an application runtime environment.

The Java programming language is a high-level, object-oriented language. When written, a Java program is compiled into bytecode. The bytecode is interpreted at run time by a platform-specific Java component. This component acts as a translator between the language and the underlying operating system and hardware. This staged approach to compiling and interpreting Java applications means that application code can be easily ported across hardware platforms and operating systems.

The IBM implementation of the Java platform is based upon the Java Technology developed by Oracle Corporation. IBM supply an installable package, the Software Developers Kit (SDK). The key components in this package are detailed in the sections that follow.

Note: Any reference to Oracle is intended as a reference to Oracle Corporation.