History Of Java
Java history is interesting to know. The history of java starts from the Green Team. Java team members (also known as Green Team), initiated a revolutionary task to develop a language for digital devices such as set-top boxes, televisions, etc.
For the green team members, it was an advance concept at that time. But, it was suited for internet programming. Later, Java technology as incorporated by Netscape.
James Gosling - founder of java
James Gosling
Currently, Java is used in internet programming, mobile devices, games, e-business solutions, etc. There are given the major points that describe the history of java.
- James Gosling, Mike Sheridan, and Patrick Naughton initiated the Java language project in June 1991. The small team of sun engineers called Green Team.
- Originally designed for small, embedded systems in electronic appliances like set-top boxes.
- Firstly, it was called "Green talk" by James Gosling and the file extension was .gt.
- After that, it was called Oak and was developed as a part of the Green project.
Why "Oak" name
- Why Oak? Oak is a symbol of strength and chose as a national tree of many countries like the U.S.A., France, Germany, Romania, etc.
- In 1995, Oak was renamed as "Java" because it was already a trademark by Oak Technologies.
Why "Java" name
- Why had they chosen java name for java language? The team gathered to choose a new name. The suggested words were "dynamic", "revolutionary", "Silk", "jolt", "DNA" etc. They wanted something that reflected the essence of the technology: revolutionary, dynamic, lively, cool, unique, and easy to spell and fun to say.
According to James Gosling, "Java was one of the top choices along with Silk". Since java was so unique, most of the team members preferred java.
- Java is an island of Indonesia where the first coffee was produced (called java coffee).
- Notice that Java is just a name, not an acronym.
- Originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems (which is now a subsidiary of Oracle Corporation) and released in 1995.
- In 1995, Time magazine called Java one of the Ten Best Products of 1995.
- JDK 1.0 released in(January 23, 1996).
Java Version Release History
There are many java versions that have been released. A current stable release of Java is Java SE 8.
| Version | Released on | Description |
|---|---|---|
| JDK1.0 | 23 Jan 1996 | The codename is Oak. Initial release of Jdk1.0 |
| JDK1.1 | 19 Feb 1997 | The addition of AWT, JDBC, RMI, JavaBeans etc |
| J2SE 1.2 | 8 Dec 1998 | J2SE(Java2 Standard Edition), Codename Playground, Major additions are- Swing graphical API was integrated, strictfp Keyword, reflection, Java IDL, collection and JIT Compiler in Sun’s JVM for Java plug-in was equipped. |
| J2SE 1.3 | 8 May 2000 | Codename Kestrel. The major changes are- Hotspot JVM included, RMI modified to support compatibility with CORBA, Java Naming and Directory Interface(JNDI) included and Java Platform Debugger Architecture(JPDA), Java Sound etc. |
| J2SE 1.4 | 6 Feb 2002 | Codename Merlin. This was the first release of the Java platform developed under Java community process as JSR 59. The Major Changes are- assert Keyword, Regular Expression, Exception chaining, Image I/O API for reading and writing images, Java Web start included. |
| J2SE 5.0 | 30 Sept 2004 | codename Tiger, Originally Numbered 1.5, New language features added are- Generics, Metadata, Autoboxing, Enumerations, Swing, Var-args, collections static imports etc. |
| Java SE 6 | 11 Dec 2006 | Codename Mustang. New changes are- Scripting Language support, Improved web service support through JAX-WS, JDBC 4.0 support, support for pluggable annotations, JVM improvements including Synchronization and compiler performance optimizations, Garbage collection algorithms. |
| Java SE 7.0 | 28 July 2011 | Codename Dolphin, currently in development stage, The features changes are- JVM support for the dynamic language, New library for parallel computing on the multi core, compressed 64-bit pointers, Automatic resource management. |
| Java SE 8.0 | 18 March 2014 | |
| Java SE 9.0 | Sept 2017 |
