Java is a programming language, was developed in 1995 by James Gosling, of Sun Microsystems that was acquired in 2010 by Oracle Corporation.

It is said that the Java programming language was created to be used in the programming of small devices, such as household appliances and vending machines. The intention was to create a programming language with the basic features of C++, but using less hardware resources and less prone to programming errors.

The syntax of this programming language is very similar to that of C and C++. Java can not be used to work at low level like C or C++ but it has other features that other programming languages ​​do not have. Java applications are usually compiled to bytecode (Java class), which can be executed in any Java virtual machine (JVM) regardless of the architecture of the computer or the operating system, this makes the Java language portable and does not have to be rewritten or compiled for other architectures.

A program can work on any computer that has the JVM (Java Virtual Machine) installed. The Android operating system for mobile phones can use Java as a standard language to create applications. As a drawback, the existence of the Java Virtual Machine means that Java programs are not as fast as it can be a program made in C, C++ or Pascal that can be optimized for a specific machine.

Java version history

As of 2017, both Java 8 and 9 are officially supported. Major release versions of Java, along with their release dates:

• JDK 1.0 (January 23, 1996)
• JDK 1.1 (February 19, 1997)
• J2SE 1.2 (December 8, 1998)
• J2SE 1.3 (May 8, 2000)
• J2SE 1.4 (February 6, 2002)
• J2SE 5.0 (September 30, 2004)
• Java SE 6 (December 11, 2006)
• Java SE 7 (July 28, 2011)
• Java SE 8 (March 18, 2014)
• Java SE 9 (September 21, 2017)
• Java SE 10 (March 20, 2018)