Java History

In this tutorial we will understand, how the Java project development initiated, its early requirements and how it is evolved over the years and the applications where Java used extensively.

Java History

Java project started with aim of interactive television in 1991 but this feature was too advanced as compared to the digital cable TV in 1991. Initial name of the Java language was Oak, got changed to Green and then finally named as Java.

Java evolved as a go to language for any programmer considering its simplicity as compared to other languages and developer friendly to write once and run anywhere.

Before Java, there are programming languages but those were difficult for developers and requires lot of efforts to make it work for all Operating Systems even after complete development of an application.

Java development started at Sun Microsystems, with the intention of communication between consumer electronic devices under the leadership of James Gosling along with a team of researchers. James Gosling is considered as a father of Java programming Language.

Java Evolution

Before starting of Java development, James Gosling and his team considered the other languages for their consumer appliances communication.

First, they have considered C++ but due to its high consumption of resources this will not fulfil the requirement as the application should run with less resources and compatible to run with any device without any additional involvement of developers, written application should be portable and can be deployed in any major operating systems.

After consideration of existing languages during that time, decided to start a new programming language with following features.

  1. Portable, application can run with same behaviour irrespective of operating system.
  2. Easy to develop, maintain and ship.
  3. Without pointers concept, as it is an error prone area.
  4. Run with embedded system with limited resources.
  5. Automatic Garbage collection, which reduces the efforts of a developer.

In 1996, JDK 1.0 was released by Sun Microsystems with promising feature of write once and run anywhere (WORA) with Security.

Quickly Java became very popular considering the functionality and simplicity of the language and it has been incorporated by majority of software application vendors and thus Java era has started.

Considering the demands on the market from time to time, java adopted those and able to fulfil all the requirements as market demanded. In the process of this many JDK versions were released from time to time.

Applications runs with Java

  1. Desktop applications
  2. Mobile applications
  3. Gaming applications
  4. Web based applications
  5. IoT
  6. Cloud based applications
  7. Big data
  8. Machine Learning

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we have learned about the background of the Java development, its evolution, and applications where java used for development.