Java

The most popular programming Language

The Birth

In 1991, James Gosling, a Computer Scientist working in Sun Microsystems along with two co-workers started designing a language for Interactive Television, but it was too advanced for Digital cable television at that time.The Language was initially named as Oak after an oak tree that stood outside Gosling’s office, and then followed by the name Green and finally they landed by the name Java. The Language has the look and feel of C++ and enforces Object Oriented Programming.

Initial Release

Sun Microsystems released the first public implementation in 1995 as Java 1.0 and it was based on the Principle “Write Once, Run Anywhere”.

“Write Once, Run Anywhere” is a benefit of Java language, where the bytecode which is so called as .class files, compiled from .java files can run in any machine irrespective of the platform by JVM(Java Virtual Machine) and produces the same Machine code.

Compilation of Java code

Once you write your Java code and save it as .java file, the javac compiler translates the human readable code into .class file which is similar to bytecode and then JVM comes in. JVM, then translates the .class files into Machine code

Principles

There were five primary goals in the creation of the Java language:

It must be “simple, object-oriented, and familiar”.

It must be “robust and secure”.

It must be “architecture-neutral and portable”.

It must execute with “high performance”.

It must be “interpreted, threaded, and dynamic”

Applications

In subsequent years, the language has become the backbone of millions of applications across multiple platforms including Windows, Macintosh and UNIX-based desktops, Android-based mobiles, embedded systems and enterprise solutions and Java finds applications in Web and Application servers, Web and Mobile Apps, Desktop GUI Apps etc., and According to Oracle (that acquired Sun Microsystems in 2010), Java now runs on more than 3 billion devices.