Writing in the Java programming language is the primary way to produce code that will be deployed as Java bytecode, though there are bytecode compilers available for other languages such as JavaScript, Python, and Ruby. Several new languages have been designed to run natively on the Java Virtual Machine (JVM), such as Scala, Clojure and Groovy. Java syntax borrows heavily from C and C++, but object-oriented features are modeled after Smalltalk and Objective-C. Java eliminates certain low-level constructs such as pointers and has a very simple memory model where every object is allocated on the heap and all variables of object types are references. Memory management is handled through integrated automatic garbage collection performed by the JVM.

On November 13, 2006, Sun Microsystems made the bulk of its implementation of Java available under the GNU General Public License, although there are still (a very few) parts distributed as precompiled binaries due to copyright issues with Sun-licensed (not owned) code.

An edition of the Java platform is the name for a bundle of related programs, or platform, from Sun which allow for developing and running programs written in the Java programming language. The platform is not specific to any one processor or operating system, but rather an execution engine (called a virtual machine) and a compiler with a set of libraries that are implemented for various hardware and operating systems so that Java programs can run identically on all of them.

As of September 2009[update], the current version of the Java Platform is specified as either 1.6.0 or 6 (both refer to the same version). Version 6 is the product version, while 1.6.0 is the developer version.

The Java Platform consists of several programs, each of which provides a distinct portion of its overall capabilities. For example, the Java compiler, which converts Java source code into Java bytecode (an intermediate language for the Java Virtual Machine (JVM)), is provided as part of the Java Development Kit (JDK). The Java Runtime Environment (JRE), complementing the JVM with a just-in-time (JIT) compiler, converts intermediate bytecode into native machine code on the fly. Also supplied are extensive libraries, pre-compiled in which are several other components, some available only in certain editions.

The essential components in the platform are the Java language compiler, the libraries, and the runtime environment in which Java intermediate bytecode "executes" according to the rules laid out in the virtual machine specification.

The heart of the Java Platform is the concept of a "virtual machine" that executes Java bytecode programs. This bytecode is the same no matter what hardware or operating system the program is running under. There is a JIT compiler within the Java Virtual Machine, or JVM. The JIT compiler translates the Java bytecode into native processor instructions at run-time and caches the native code in memory during execution.

The use of bytecode as an intermediate language permits Java programs to run on any platform that has a virtual machine available. The use of a JIT compiler means that Java applications, after a short delay during loading and once they have "warmed up" by being all or mostly JIT-compiled, tend to run about as fast as native programs. Since JRE version 1.2, Sun's JVM implementation has included a just-in-time compiler instead of an interpreter.

Although Java programs are platform independent, the code of the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) that execute these programs is not; every supported operating platform has its own JVM.

In most modern operating systems, a large body of reusable code is provided to simplify the programmer's job. This code is typically provided as a set of dynamically loadable libraries that applications can call at runtime. Because the Java Platform is not dependent on any specific operating system, applications cannot rely on any of the pre-existing OS libraries. Instead, the Java Platform provides a comprehensive set of its own standard class libraries containing much of the same reusable functions commonly found in modern operating systems.