Java

Java is a programming language, and it is also the thing that runs the finished program. You write the code once, and it is then packed into a file that any computer can run, as long as that computer has the Java runtime installed. The runtime itself is a small free program that sits between your code and the machine.

That sounds dull until you look at who depends on it. A bank replaces its servers every few years, yet the program that moves money between accounts is often older than the staff running it. Java is what makes that possible, because it lets the machine underneath change without the software being rewritten. Banks, airlines, insurers and tax offices chose it for that reason a long time ago, and most of them are still on it.

Java is also wordy, because saying the same thing takes more lines than it would in a newer language. That is deliberate, as the person who wrote the code will have left years before the program is finally retired. The extra words are a note to whoever opens the file next. When Linkysoft is handed an old Java system to look after, that habit is usually why we can read it at all.

Two things about Java surprise people. The first is that it is the original language of Android phones, so the same skill covers a bank's back office and the app in your pocket. That is why we keep Java developers on the mobile app side as well as the server side. The second is money, because Java itself is free while Oracle's own version is now sold to a business per employee, counting everyone and not just the programmers. Free versions exist and they run exactly the same code, so ask which one you are on before you sign anything.

The real risk in an old Java system is not the language, but the pile of small free add-ons bolted on years ago and never updated since. One of them, a plain tool for keeping a log of what the program did, caused a worldwide emergency in 2021. That is why, when Linkysoft quotes a web application that runs on Java, the cost of checking those add-ons sits in the price, next to the security review. It works out far cheaper than the week you would otherwise spend fixing it in a hurry.