History of Java

HISTORY :

Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems

James Gosling initiated the Java language project in June 1991

released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform

Sun Microsystems released the first public implementation as Java 1.0 in 1995

On November 13, 2006, Sun released much of Java as open source software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). On May 8, 2007, Sun finished the process, making all of Java's core code available under free software/open-source distribution terms, aside from a small portion of code to which Sun did not hold the copyright.

Java version history:

JDK 1.0 (January 23, 1996)

Codename Oak.

JDK 1.1 (February 19, 1997):

Major additions included

• an extensive retooling of the AWT event model
• inner classes added to the language
• JavaBeans
• JDBC
• RMI

J2SE 1.2 (December 8, 1998):

• Codename Playground. This and subsequent releases through J2SE 5.0 were rebranded retrospectively Java 2 and the version name "J2SE" (Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition) replaced JDK to distinguish the base platform from J2EE (Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition) and J2ME (Java 2 Platform, Micro Edition). Major additions include
• strictfp keyword
• reflection which supported Introspection only, no modification at runtime was possible.
• the Swing graphical API was integrated into the core classes
• Sun's JVM was equipped with a JIT compiler for the first time
• Java Plug-in
• Java IDL, an IDL implementation for CORBA interoperability
• Collections framework

J2SE 1.3 (May 8, 2000):

• Codename Kestrel. The most notable changes were:
• HotSpot JVM included (the HotSpot JVM was first released in April, 1999 for the J2SE 1.2 JVM)
• RMI was modified to support optional compatibility with CORBA
• JavaSound
• Java Naming and Directory Interface (JNDI) included in core libraries (previously available as an extension)
• Java Platform Debugger Architecture (JPDA)
• Synthetic proxy classes

 J2SE 1.4 (February 6, 2002):

• Codename Merlin. This was the first release of the Java platform developed under the Java Community Process as JSR 59. Major changes included:
• assert keyword (Specified in JSR 41.)
• regular expressions modeled after Perl regular expressions
• exception chaining allows an exception to encapsulate original lower-level exception
• Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) support
• non-blocking NIO (New Input/Output) (Specified in JSR 51.)
• logging API (Specified in JSR 47.)
• image I/O API for reading and writing images in formats like JPEG and PNG
• integrated XML parser and XSLT processor (JAXP) (Specified in JSR 5 and JSR 63.)
• integrated security and cryptography extensions (JCE, JSSE, JAAS)
• Java Web Start included (Java Web Start was first released in March, 2001 for J2SE 1.3) (Specified in JSR 56.)

 J2SE 5.0 (September 30, 2004):

• Codename Tiger. (Originally numbered 1.5, which is still used as the internal version number.) Developed under JSR 176, Tiger added a number of significant new language features:
• Generics: Provides compile-time (static) type safety for collections and eliminates the need for most typecasts (type conversion). (Specified by JSR 14.).

Major changes included in this version:

• Support for older Win9x versions dropped. Unofficially Java 6 Update 7 is the last release of Java shown to work on these versions of Windows. This is believed to be due to the major changes in Update 10.
• Scripting Language Support (JSR 223): Generic API for tight integration with scripting languages, and built-in Mozilla JavaScript Rhino integration
• Dramatic performance improvements for the core platform[17][18], and Swing.
• Improved Web Service support through JAX-WS (JSR 224)
• JDBC 4.0 support (JSR 221).
• Java Compiler API (JSR 199): an API allowing a Java program to select and invoke a Java Compiler programmatically.
• Upgrade of JAXB to version 2.0: Including integration of a StAX parser.
• Support for pluggable annotations (JSR 269)
• Many GUI improvements, such as integration of SwingWorker in the API, table sorting and filtering, and true Swing double-buffering (eliminating the gray-area effect).
• JVM improvements include: synchronization and compiler performance optimizations, new algorithms and upgrades to existing garbage collection algorithms, and application start-up performance.

Java SE 6 :

Java SE 6 Update 10 (previously known as Java SE 6 Update N), while it does not change any public API, is meant as a major enhancement in terms of end-user usability. The release version is currently available for download.

 Major changes for this update include

 Java Deployment Toolkit, a set of JavaScript functions to ease the deployment of applets and Java Web Start applications.

 Java Kernel, a small installer including only the most commonly used JRE classes. Other packages are downloaded when needed.

Enhanced updater.

Enhanced versioning and pack200 support: server-side support is no longer required.

Java Quick Starter, to improve cold start-up time.

Improved performance of Java2D graphics primitives on Windows, using Direct3D and hardware acceleration.

A new Swing look and feel called Nimbus and based on synth.

 Next-Generation Java Plug-In: applets now run in a separate process and support many features of Web Start applications.

Java SE 6 Update 11

Released December 3, 2008

Java SE 6 Update 12

This release includes the highly anticipated 64-bit Java Plug-In (for 64-bit browsers only), Windows Server 2008 support, and performance improvements of Java and JavaFX applications

 Java SE 6 Update 14

Java SE 6 Update 14 (6u14) was released as of May 28, 2009.

 This release includes extensive performance updates to the HotSpot JIT compiler, compressed pointers for 64-bit machines, as well as support for the G1 (Garbage First) low pause garbage collector

 Java SE 6 Update 16

Released August 11, 2009. Fixes the issue introduced in update 14 which caused debuggers to miss breakpoints

Java SE 6 Update 17

Released November 4, 2009.

Java SE 6 Update 18

Released January 13, 2010.

Java SE 7.0

• Java 7 (codename Dolphin) is the next version of Java, currently in the planning and development stages. The Dolphin Project had began in August 2006 and is tentatively scheduled for release in late 2010. New builds including enhancements and bug fixes are released approximately weekly.
• New features that may be integrated in Java 7 include:
• JVM support for dynamic languages, following the prototyping work currently done on the Multi Language Virtual Machine,
• A new library for parallel computing on Multi-core processors Superpackages (JSR 294), which are a way to define explicitly in a library or module which classes will be visible from outside of the library,
• Replacing the existing concurrent low-pause garbage collector (also called CMS or Concurrent Mark-Sweep collector) with the G1 garbage collector.
• Various small language changes, grouped in a project called Project Coin. These changes are still being evaluated but could include: Strings in switch, more concise calls to constructors with type parameters, or multi-catch in exceptions.
• Built-in support for closures. There was an ongoing debate in the Java community on whether closures support would be appropriate Sun later declared that closures would eventually be included in Java 7, but that they asked for input from the community.

Failures:

• Java was designed by Sun Microsystems in the early 1990s to solve the problem of Connecting many household machine together.This project failed because no one wanted to use it
• Then it was redesigned to work with cable TV .This project also failed because the cable companies Decided to choose a competing system.

Success:

• When the world wide web became popular in 1994,Sun realised that java was the perfect programming language for the web.Early in 1996 they released Java and it was instant sucess.

Versions:

Java 1.0 - 212 classes in 8 packages, released Jan 23, 1996.

Java 1.1 - 503 classes in 23 packages, released Feb 19, 1997.

Java 1.2/2.0 - 1,520 classes in 59 packages, released Dec 8, 1998.

Java 3.0-1840 classes , released May 8, 2000.

Java 4.0 - 2723 classes , February 6, 2002.

Java 5.0 - 3562 classes in 166 packages, released May 8,2004.

Java 6.0 -3793 classes in 203 packages released .

Java 7.0 -3977 classes in 209 packages released.

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