10/04/2025 22:55 Java History

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Java - History
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History of Java
Java programming language was originally developed by Sun Microsystems which was initiated by James Gosling and released in 1995
as core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform (Java 1.0 [J2SE]). History of even naming of the Java is very interesting. It
went under many names.

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Java Name History

GreenTalk

James Gosling was leading a team named as 'Green' team. Target of this team was to create a new language which can work on
multiple electronic devices seemlessly. Initially C++ was the original choice to develop the project. James Gosling wanted to enhance
C++ to achieve the target but due to high memory usage, that idea was rejected and team started with a new language initially named
as GreenTalk. The file extension used as .gt. Later this language was termed as Oak and finally to Java.

Oak

James Gosling renamed language to Oak. There was an Oak tree in front of his office. James Gosling used this name as Oak represents
solidarity and Oak tree is the national tree of multiple countries like USA, France, Romania etc. But Oak technologies already had Oak
as a trademark and James team had to brainstrom another title for the language.

Finally Java

Team put multiple names like DNA, Silk, Ruby and Java. Java was finalized by the team. James Gosling tabled Java title based on type
of espresso coffee bean. Java is an island in Indonesia where new coffee was discovered termed as Java coffee. As per James Gosling,
Java was among the top choice along with Silk. Finally Java was selected as it was quite unique and represented the essence of being
dynamic,revolutionary and fun to say.

Sun released the first public implementation as Java 1.0 in 1995. It promised Write Once, Run Anywhere (WORA), providing no-cost
run-times on popular platforms.

On 13 November, 2006, Sun released much of Java as free and open source software under the terms of the GNU General Public
License (GPL).

On 8 May, 2007, Sun finished the process, making all of Java's core code free and open-source, aside from a small portion of code to
which Sun did not hold the copyright.

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10/04/2025 22:55 Java History
The latest release of the Java Standard Edition is Java SE 21. With the advancement of Java and its widespread popularity, multiple
configurations were built to suit various types of platforms. For example: J2EE for Enterprise Applications, J2ME for Mobile Applications.

Java Versions History

Over the period of nearly 30 years, Java has seen many minor and major versions. Following is a brief explaination of versions of java
till date.

Sr.No. Version Date Description

1 JDK Beta 1995 Initial Draft version

23 Jan
2 JDK 1.0 A stable variant JDK 1.0.2 was termed as JDK 1
1996

19 Feb
3 JDK 1.1 Major features like JavaBeans, RMI, JDBC, inner classes were added in this release.
1997

8 Dec Swing, JIT Compiler, Java Modules, Collections were introduced to JAVA and this release was a
4 JDK 1.2
1998 great success.

8 May
5 JDK 1.3 HotSpot JVM, JNDI, JPDA, JavaSound and support for Synthetic proxy classes were added.
2000

6 Feb Image I/O API to create/read JPEG/PNG image were added. Integrated XML parser and XSLT
6 JDK 1.4
2002 processor (JAXP) and Preferences API were other important updates.

JDK 1.5 or 30 Sep

7 Various new features were added to the language like foreach, var-args, generics etc.
J2SE 5 2004

11 Dec 1. notation was dropped to SE and upgrades done to JAXB 2.0, JSR 269 support and JDBC 4.0
8 JAVA SE 6
2006 support added.

7 Jul Support for dynamic languages added to JVM. Another enhancements included string in switch case,
9 JAVA SE 7
2011 compressed 64 bit pointers etc.

18 Mar Support for functional programming added. Lambda expressions, streams, default methods,
10 JAVA SE 8
2014 new date-time APIs introduced.

21 Sep
11 JAVA SE 9 Module system introduced which can be applied to JVM platform.
2017

20 Mar Unicode language-tag extensions added. Root certificates, threadlocal handshakes, support for heap
12 JAVA SE 10
2018 allocation on alternate memory devices etc were introduced.

5 Sep Dynamic class-file constants, Epsilon a no-op garbage collector, local-variable support in lambda
13 JAVA SE 11
2018 parameters, Low-overhead heap profiling support added.

19 Mar Experimental Garbage Collector,Shenandoah: A Low-Pause-Time Garbage Collector, Microbenchmark

14 JAVA SE 12
2019 Suite, JVM Constants API added.

17 Sep
15 JAVA SE 13 Feature added - Text Blocks (Multiline strings), Enhanced Thread-local handshakes.
2019

17 Mar Feature added - Records, a new class type for modelling, Pattern Matching for instanceof,
16 JAVA SE 14
2020 Intuitive NullPointerException handling.

15 Sep
17 JAVA SE 15 Feature added - Sealed Classes, Hidden Classes, Foreign Function and Memory API (Incubator).
2020

16 Mar Feature added as preview - Records, Pattern Matching for switch, Unix Domain Socket Channel
18 JAVA SE 16
2021 (Incubator) etc.

14 Sep Feature added as finalized - Sealed Classes, Pattern Matching for instanceof, Strong encapsulation of
19 JAVA SE 17
2021 JDK internals by default. New macOS rendering pipeline etc.

22 Mar Feature added - UTF-8 by Default, Code Snippets in Java API Documentation, Vector API (Third
20 JAVA SE 18
2022 incubator), Foreign Function, Memory API (Second Incubator) etc.

20 Sep Feature added - Record pattern, Vector API (Fourth incubator), Structured Concurrency (Incubator)
21 JAVA SE 19
2022 etc.

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10/04/2025 22:55 Java History

21 Mar Feature added - Scoped Values (Incubator), Record Patterns (Second Preview), Pattern Matching for
22 JAVA SE 20
2023 switch (Fourth Preview),Foreign Function & Memory API (Second Preview) etc.

19 Sep Feature added - String Templates (Preview), Sequenced Collections, Generational ZGC, Record
22 JAVA SE 21
2023 Patterns, Pattern Matching for switch etc.

Feature added - Region Pinning for G1 garbage collector, foreign functions and memory APIs , multi-
19 Mar
23 Java SE 22 file source code programs support, string templates, vector apis (seventh incubator), unnamed
2024
variables, patterns, stream gatherers (first preview) etc.

17 Sep Feature added - Primitive types in patterns, class file APIs, vector APIs (Eighth incubator), stream
24 Java SE 23
2024 gatherers (second preview), ZDC, generation mode by default etc.

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