An application in shipped in an archive format with a main class that contains a main method that starts the application.
Every Java application has a single instance of class Runtime that allows the application to interface with the Operating System environment in which the application is running.
How to start a java application in its own process with the jvm directly from the console
You can start a java application by creating a shell script.
java -cp ../lib/myApplication.jar com.mypackage.myMainClass arg1 arg2
where:
With a executable jar, you just need to call the jar with java.
java -jar my_executable.jar
A Java EE application is packaged into one or more standard units for deployment to any Java EE platform-compliant system.
Each unit contains:
Once a Java EE unit has been produced, it is ready to be deployed. Once deployed, the application is ready to run.
A launcher is a java class that take into account all the steps needed to start your application. This is an advanced technique.