The history of Java is very fascinating, it was originally developed and designed for the digital devices such as set-top boxes and televisions. Java was very advanced technology for the time, so it was scaled to other fields. It was developed in the early 90s. The main motive behind developing Java is to create a language that is ‘simple’, ‘robust’, ‘platform-independent’, ‘secure’ and high-performance.
The Green team was working on the project. The Green Team members initiated this project. They were thought to use C++ for the television project. But, James Goslin and his team (The Green team) want a language to be accessible by a variety of computer processors. In 1994, he realized that this language would be ideal for the web browsers. Here, the Java’s connection to the internet began. In 1995, Netscape Incorporated released its first version of the Netscape browser with Java technology. It was suitable for web-based applications.
James Gosling – founder of Java
Nowadays, Java is one of the most widely used programming languages with having 3 billion devices support. It is almost everywhere from mobile phones to desktop applications. It was founded by James Gosling also known as “Dr. Java”.
From Oak to Java
As we have discussed it was initiated in 1991 by Green team (James Gosling, Mike Sheridan, and Patrick Naughton) from Sun Microsystem. It was initially designed for small digital devices such as home appliances, televisions, and set-top boxes. First it was called as “Gree talk”, and it’s file extension was ‘.gt’.
Why it named as “Oak”?
Oak tree was considered as the “symbol of strength” and, it was the national tree of many countries such as the U.S.A., Germany, Romania, France, and more. However, later in 1995, it was named as “Java” because the Oak was already a trademark of Oak Technologies.
Why Java is so Popular?
One of the major reasons behind the popularity of Java is that it is “platform-independent”. The Java code can be written anywhere and can be run on any machine. It supports different operating systems. All it needs a JRE installed on a machine. Most of the systems are compatible with JRE.
Java is acquired and maintained by Oracle Inc, so the organization’s name is a reliable and well known for its superb products. The Oracle keep updating it so it will never gonna be outdated. Java is used by many banks, insurance companies, manufactures, and retailers. Many developers have seen that Java combines uniqueness and stability.
Almost all types of applications can be developed by the Java. Many applications are developed by the Java technologies. Some most used applications are the following:
- Mobile Applications
- Desktop GUI Applications
- Web-based Applications
- Enterprise Applications
- Scientific Applications
- Gaming Applications
- Big Data technologies
- Business Applications
- Distributed Applications
- Cloud-based Applications
Later we will discuss about each application in the Java Application section.
Also, we will not forget to mention its unique and awesome features such as:
- Object-Oriented
- Simple
- Platform Independent
- Secure
- Architecture-neutral
- Robust
- Portable
- Multi-threaded
- Distributed
- Dynamic
- High-performance
Later we will discuss each feature in the Java features section.
So, these are the reason behind the popularity of the Java programming languages.
Version History of Java?
Java programming language first developed in 1995 with version 1.0. It got several updations and changes since version 1.0. the latest version is Java 14. later we will focus on every version in depth in Java version sections. A complete list of Java versions are as following:
Versions Release date
JDK Beta 1995
J2SE 1.0 January 1996
J2SE 1.1 February 1997
J2SE 1.2 December 1998
J2SE 1.3 May 2000
J2SE 1.4 February 2002
J2SE 5.0 September 2004
JAVA SE 6 December 2006
JAVA SE 7 July 2011
JAVA SE 8 (LTS) March 2014
JAVA SE 9 September 2017
JAVA SE 10 March 2018
JAVA SE 11 (LTS) September 2018
JAVA SE 12 March 2019
JAVA SE 13 September 2019
JAVA SE 14 March 2020