Java — The Introduction & History
Java is a high-level, popular and one of the most widely used programming language. It was originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1991. This language was initially called “Oak” but was renamed “Java” in 1995. Java has become the most important programming language because it is a language for internet.
James Gosling, Patrick Naughton, Chris Warth, Ed Frank, and Mike Sheridan a team of 5 engineers worked on “Project Green”, a system for consumer devices and they developed a programming language. James Gosling initially named it as “OAK”, after an oak tree that stood outside Gosling’s office, also went by the name ‘Green’ and ended up later being renamed as Java.
Why Named as JAVA?
After the name OAK, the team decided to give a new name to it and the suggested words were Silk, Java, Jolt, revolutionary, DNA, dynamic, etc. These all names were easy to spell and fun to say, but they all wanted the name to reflect the essence of technology. In accordance with James Gosling, Java was among the top names along with Silk, and since java was a unique name so most of them preferred it.
Java is the name of an island in Indonesia where the first coffee(named java coffee) was produced. And this name was chosen by James Gosling while having coffee near his office, he liked the coffee and named the programming language as JAVA.
About Java
Java is a class-based, object-oriented programming language and is designed to have as few implementation dependencies as possible. It is platform independent, i.e., “Write Once Run Anywhere”. It can run on a variety of platforms, such as Windows, macOS, and the various versions of UNIX.
Java is used in all kinds of applications like Mobile Applications (Android is Java-based), desktop applications, web applications, client-server applications, enterprise applications, and many more. Now, It is owned by Oracle, and more than 3 billion devices run Java. There is a majority of companies such as, Uber, Pinterest, Google, Instagram, Spotify, Netflix, Airbnb, etc. that use Java in their tech stack.
Main Features of Java Programming:
- Java is Object-Oriented.
- It is Platform Independent.
- It is Simple and easy to learn.
- It is secure, fast and powerful.
- It is Architecture-neutral and Portable.
- It is Robust.
Applications of Java Programming
Java provides a rich and wide range of API that helps programmers to develop applications. Using Java, we can develop different applications for different purposes. We can use Java technology to develop the following applications:
- Mobile App Development
- Desktop GUI Applications
- Web-based Applications
- Gaming Applications
- Big Data Technologies
- Distributed Applications
- Cloud-based Applications
- IoT Applications
NOTE:
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Next part coming soon. Happy Learning!
