History of Java Programming Language

• In nineties Computer hardware went through size and performance revolution.
• The demand for big and complex software exponentially increased.
• To accommodate the demand new Programming languages were invented.
• Programming languages like FORTRAN and COBOL, etc are the main player in the programming sector.
• In 1972, Dennis Ritchie developed C language which becomes the most popular language among programmers working on PCs.
• After some time programmers found that programming in C is tedious because of its structural syntax.
• To solve this problem a new concept was introduced named as Object-Oriented Programming.
• In 1979, Bjarne Stroustrup developed C++ an enhancement to the C language which includes OOP fundamentals and features while he was working at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey. Stroustrup initially called the new language "C with Classes" in 1983, the name was changed to C++.
• Before Java Earlier programming languages and C++ was the dominant players in the programming sector.
• The primary goal of the creators of Java was to create a language that could tackle tedious tasks of earlier languages.
• In December of 1990, a project was initiated whose aim was to create a programming tool that could render obsolete the C and C++ programming languages.
• Engineer Patrick Naughton started the Stealth Project.
• This Stealth Project was later named the Green Project when James Gosling and Mike Sheridan joined Patrick.
• 13 people started working in a small office on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park, California and this team named as Green Team.

• Their main aim is to create a new language to the devices other than the computer.
• The project was chartered by Sun Microsystems to anticipate and plan for the next wave in computing.
• Gosling began work on enhancing C++ and named it "C++ ++ --", the ++ and -- meant, putting in and taking out stuff.
• He soon abandoned the name and called it Oak after the tree that stood outside his office.
• James Gosling initiated the Java language project in June 1991 for use in one of his many set-top box projects.
• By now, the work on Oak had been significant but come the year 1993, people saw the demise of set-top boxes, interactive TV and the PDAs. A failure that completely ushered the inventors' thoughts to be reinvented. Only a miracle could make the project a success now. And such a miracle awaited anticipation.
• National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) had just unveiled its new commercial web browser for the internet the previous year.
• Now team diverted towards where they thought the "next-wave" of computing would be - the internet.
• A by-product of the project was a cartoon named "Duke" created by Joe Parlang which became its identity then.
• The team then divulged into the realms of creating the same embeddable technology to be used in the web browser space calling it an applet.
• Keeping all of this in mind, the team created a list of features tackling the C++ problems. In their opinion, the project should ...
  ..Be simple and gather tested fundamentals and features from the earlier languages in it.
  ..Have standard sets of APIs with basic and advanced features bundled with the language.
  ..Get rid of concepts requiring direct manipulation of hardware.
  ..Be platform independent and may written for every platform.
  ..Be able to manipulate network programming.
  ..Be embeddable in web browsers.
• Java fairly secure and featuring configurable security, it allowed network and file access restrictions.
• Major web browsers soon incorporated the ability to run Java applets within web pages and Java quickly became popular.
• Sun made most of its Java implementations available without charge, despite their proprietary software status.
• Sun generated revenue from Java through the selling of licenses for specialized products such as the Java Enterprise System.
• On 13 November 2006, Sun released much of Java as 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 available under open source distribution terms.
• On April 20, 2009, Sun and Oracle Corporation announced that they had entered into a definitive agreement under which Oracle would acquire Sun for $9.50 (638.45 Indian Rupee) a share in cash.
• . Net of Sun's cash and debt, this amounted to a $5.6 billion (376348000000.00 Indian Rupee) offer from Oracle.
• Sun's shareholders voted to approve the proposal on July 16, 2009, although the deal was still subject to regulatory approvals.
• The acquisition of Sun Microsystems by Oracle Corporation was completed on January 27, 2010.
• Significantly, Oracle previously only a software vendor now owned both hardware and software product lines from Sun example SPARC Enterprise and Java, respectively.