Programming and testing are usually classified as different professional areas. Scott Oakes, a recognized expert on the Java language, believes that if you want to work with the language, you must understand how code runs in the Java Virtual Machine and know what settings affect performance. You can understand Java application performance in the context of how JVM and Java platforms, learn the tools, functions, and processes that can improve performance in LTS versions of Java, and become familiar with new features (such as precompilation and experimental garbage collectors).