5.2.4 Robust

The multi platformed environment of the Web places extraordinary demands on a program, because the program must execute reliably in a variety of systems. Thus, the ability to create robust programs was given a high priority in the design of Java. To gain reliability, Java restricts you in a few key areas, to force you to find your mistakes early in program development. At the same time, Java frees you from having to worry about many of the most common causes of programming errors. Because Java is a strictly typed language, it checks your code at compile time. However, it also checks your code at run time. In fact, many hard-to-track-down bugs that often turns up in hard-to-reproduce run-time situations are simply impossible to create in Java.
Knowing that what you have written will behave in a predictable way under diverse conditions is a key feature of Java.