Java is an Object-Oriented programming language developed by James Gosling in the early 1990s.

The team initiated this project to develop a language for digital devices such as set-top boxes,
television, etc. Originally C++ was considered to be used in the project but the idea was rejected for
several reasons(For instance C++ required more memory). Gosling endeavoured to alter and
expand C++ however before long surrendered that for making another stage called Green. James
Gosling and his team called their project “Greentalk” and its file extension was .gt and later became to
known as “OAK”.
Why “Oak”?
The name Oak was used by Gosling after an oak tree that remained outside his office. Also, Oak is an
image of solidarity and picked as a national tree of numerous nations like the U.S.A., France, Germany,
Romania, etc. But they had to later rename it as “JAVA” as it was already a trademark by Oak
Technologies. “JAVA” Gosling and his team did a brainstorm session and after the session, they
came up with several names such as JAVA, DNA, SILK, RUBY, etc. Java name was decided after
much discussion since it was so unique. The name Java originates from a sort of espresso bean,
Java. Gosling came up with this name while having a coffee near his office. Java was created on the
principles like Robust, Portable, Platform Independent, High Performance, Multithread, etc. and
was called one of the Ten Best Products of 1995 by the TIME MAGAZINE. Currently, Java is used
in internet programming, mobile devices, games, e-business solutions, etc.
The Java language has experienced a few changes since JDK 1.0 just as various augmentations of
classes and packages to the standard library. In Addition to the language changes, considerably more
sensational changes have been made to the Java Class Library throughout the years, which has
developed from a couple of hundred classes in JDK 1.0 to more than three thousand in J2SE 5.
History of various Java versions:
Version Release Date Major changes

JDK Beta 1995

The Very first version

was released on
January 23, 1996. The
JDK 1.0 January 1996
principal stable
variant, JDK 1.0.2, is
called Java 1.

Was released on
February 19, 1997.
There were many
additions in JDK 1.1
as compared to
version 1.0 such as
 A broad retooling of
JDK 1.1 February 1997 the AWT occasion
show
 Inner classes
added to the
language
 JavaBeans
 JDBC
 RMI

J2SE 1.2 December 1998 “Play area” was the

codename which was
given to this form and
was released on 8th
December 1998. Its
real expansion
included: strictfp
keyword
 the Swing graphical
API was
coordinated into the
centre classes
 Sun’s JVM was
outfitted with a JIT
compiler out of the
Version Release Date Major changes

blue
 Java module
 Java IDL, an IDL
usage for CORBA
interoperability
 Collections system

Codename-
“KESTREL” Release
Date- 8th May 2000
Additions:
 HotSpot JVM
included
J2SE 1.3 May 2000
 Java Naming and
Directory Interface
 JPDA
 JavaSound
 Synthetic proxy
classes

J2SE 1.4 February 2002 Codename- “Merlin”

Release Date- 6th
February 2002
Additions: Library
improvements
 Regular
expressions
modelled after Perl
regular expressions
 The 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)
 Preferences API
(java.util.prefs)
 Version Release Date Major changes

Public Support and

security updates for
this version ended in
October 2008.

Codename- “Tiger”
Release Date- “30th
September 2004”
Originally numbered
as 1.5 which is still
used as its internal
J2SE 5.0 September 2004 version. Added
several new language
features such as:
 for-each loop
 Generics
 Autoboxing
 Var-args

JAVA SE 6 December 2006 Codename- “Mustang”

Released Date- 11th
December 2006
Packaged with a
database supervisor
and encourages the
utilization of scripting
languages with the
JVM. Replaced the
name J2SE with java
SE and dropped the .0
from the version
number. Additions:
 Upgrade of JAXB to
version 2.0:
Including
integration of a
StAX parser.
 Support for
pluggable
annotations (JSR
269).
 Version Release Date Major changes

 JDBC 4.0 support

(JSR 221)

Codename- “Dolphin”
Release Date- 7th
July 2011 Added small
language changes
including strings in the
switch. The JVM was
extended with support
for dynamic
JAVA SE 7 July 2011
languages. Additions:
 Compressed 64-bit
pointers.
 Binary Integer
Literals.
 Upstream updates
to XML and
Unicode.

Released Date- 18th

March 2014 Language
level support for
lambda expressions
JAVA SE 8 March 2014
and default methods
and a new date and
time API inspired by
Joda Time.

Release Date: 21st

September 2017
Project Jigsaw:
designing and
implementing a
JAVA SE 9 September 2017 standard, a module
system for the Java
SE platform, and to
apply that system to
the platform itself and
the JDK.
 Version Release Date Major changes

Released Date- 20th

March Addition:
 Additional Unicode
language-tag
extensions
 Root certificates
 Thread-local
handshakes
JAVA SE 10 March 2018  Heap allocation on
alternative memory
devices
 Remove the native-
header generation
tool – javah.
 Consolidate the
JDK forest into a
single repository.

Released Date- 25th

September, 2018
Additions-
 Dynamic class-file
constants
 Epsilon: a no-op
garbage collector
 The local-variable
JAVA SE 11 September 2018 syntax for lambda
parameters
 Low-overhead heap
profiling
 HTTP client
(standard)
 Transport Layer
Security (TLS) 1.3
 Flight recorder

JAVA SE 12 March 2019 Released Date- 19th

March 2019 Additions-
 Shenandoah: A
Low-Pause-Time
Garbage Collector
 Version Release Date Major changes

(Experimental)
 Microbenchmark
Suite
 Switch Expressions
(Preview)
 JVM Constants API
 One AArch64 Port,
Not Two
 Default CDS
Archives

Released Date – 17th

September 2019
Additions-
 Text Blocks
JAVA SE 13 September 2019 (Multiline strings).
 Switch
Expressions.
 Enhanced Thread-
local handshakes.

Released Date – 17th

March 2020
Additions-
 Records (new class
type for data
JAVA SE 14 March 2020 modeling).
 Pattern Matching
for instanceof.
 Helpful
NullPointerExceptio
ns.

Released Date – 15th

September 2020
Additions-
 Sealed Classes.
JAVA SE 15 September 2020
 Hidden Classes.
 Foreign Function
and Memory API
(Incubator).
 Version Release Date Major changes

Released Date – 16th

March 2021
Additions-
 Records (preview
feature).
JAVA SE 16 March 2021  Pattern Matching
for switch (preview
feature).
 Unix Domain
Socket Channel
(Incubator).

Released Date – 14th

September 2021
Additions-
 Sealed Classes
(finalized).
 Pattern Matching
for instanceof
JAVA SE 17 September 2021
(finalized).
 Strong
encapsulation of
JDK internals by
default.
 New macOS
rendering pipeline.

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