History of Java

In this tutorial “History of Java” you will learn all the point included in history of Java programming language with detail. Here we cover all the topic of Java regarding its history. You can also download the latest version of Java JDK. Download JDK.

We included here –

• What is Java?
  
• History of Java.
  
• Why Java named “Oak”?
  
• Why Java programming named “Java”?
  
• Principles to create Java.
  
• Versions of Java.
  

Now you learn all these topics one by one in details.

What is Java?

Java is a high-level object-oriented programming languages and development platform. Java was designed for the development of software for consumer electronic devices like TVs, VCRs, and such other electronic devices. It is heigh level object-oriented and secure programming language.

History of Java

The history of java starts with Green Team, Java team member is also known as Green Team, they initiate this project to develop a language for digital devices such as Television, Set-top Box etc. However, it was suited for internet programming.

The principles of developing Java programming language were Simple, Portable, Platform-Independent, Secure, Robust, High Performance, Multithreaded, Architecture Nature, Object-Oriented, Dynamic and Interpreted.

James Gosling, Mike Sheridan, and Patrick Naughton initiated the Java language project in June 1991. Java was originally designed for interactive television, but it was too advanced for the digital cable television industry at the time. The language was initially called Oak after an oak tree that stood outside Gosling’s office. Later the project went by the name Green and was finally renamed Java, from Java coffee, a type of coffee from Indonesia. Gosling designed Java with a C and C++ style syntax that system and application programmers would find familiar.

Java was originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems. It was released in May 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems’ Java platform. The original and reference implementation Java compilers, virtual machines, and class libraries were originally released by Sun under proprietary licenses. As of May 2007, in compliance with the specifications of the Java Community Process, Sun had relicensed most of its Java technologies under the GPL-2.0-only license. Oracle offers its own Hotspot Java Virtual Machine, however the official reference implementation is the Open JDK JVM which is free open-source software and used by most developers and is the default JVM for almost all Linux distributions.

On November 13, 2006, Sun Microsystem released much of its Java virtual machine (JVM) as free and open-source software (FOSS), under the terms of the GPL-2.0-only license. On May 8, 2007, Sun finished the process, making all of its JVM’s core code available under free software or open-source distribution terms, aside from a small portion of code to which Sun did not hold the copyright.

Currently Java is used in internet programming, mobile devices, games, e-business solution, etc.

Why Java programming named “Java”?

According to James Gosling (founder and lead designer of Java programming language), Java was one of the top choices along with silk, Since Java was so unique, most of the team member of Java preferred name as “Java”. It is just a name, not an acronym. Java is developed by James Gosling at Sun microsystems (which is now a subsidiary of Oracle Corporation).

Why Java named “Oak”?

Oak is a symbol of strength and it is national tree of many countries like Germany, U.S.A, France, Romania, etc.

Oak is a discontinued programming language created by James Gosling in 1989, initially for Sun Microsystems’ set-top box project. The language later evolved to become Java.

Has been said, the name Oak was used by James Gosling after an oak tree that stood outside his office.

In 1995, Oak was renamed as “Java” because it was already a trademark by Oak Technologies.

Principles to create Java.

There were five primary goals in the creation of the Java programming language, that five points are given below;

1. It must be simple, object-oriented, and familiar.
   
2. It must be robust and secure.
   
3. It must be architecture-neutral and portable.
   
4. It must execute with high performance.
   
5. It must be interpreted, threaded, and dynamic.
   

Versions of Java

After the creation of Java Language, many Java versions of them have been released, as you can see below.

As of September 2021, Java 8, 11 and 17 are supported as LTS (Long-Term Support) versions. The current stable release of Java is “Java SE 19” (September 20, 2022). Download Now

Major release versions of Java, along with their release dates.

So, in this tutorial you cover all topics under the “History of Java“, you read here what is java, all version of Java language, Why Java named as “Java”, Why Java named “Oak” etc. I hope you read this tutorial better and learn something new. If you have any doubt, ask in the comment section.

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