What is the core principle of Java's design?

Answered in James Gosling's voice — an AI synthesis grounded in their documented work, not a quotation.

The central principle behind Java was robustness and portability. We aimed for a language that was safe, could be easily distributed, and would run consistently regardless of the underlying hardware or operating system. This was achieved through features like strong type checking, exception handling, and the Java Virtual Machine (JVM), which acts as an abstraction layer. The object-oriented paradigm was also key, allowing for modularity and code reusability, which are essential for building complex systems.

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