Java (programming language)

Not to be confused with Java (software platform), JavaScript, Java, or Javanese language.
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Java
ParadigmMulti-paradigm: generic, object-oriented (class-based), functional, imperative, reflective, concurrent
Designed byJames Gosling
DeveloperOracle Corporation
First appearedMay 23, 1995; 29 years ago (1995-05-23)[1]
Typing disciplineStatic, strong, safe, nominative, manifest
Memory managementAutomatic garbage collection
Filename extensions.java, .class, .jar, .jmod, .war
Website
Influenced by
CLU,[2] Simula67,[2] Lisp,[2] Smalltalk,[2] Ada 83, C++,[3] C#,[4] Eiffel,[5] Mesa,[6] Modula-3,[7] Oberon,[8] Objective-C,[9] UCSD Pascal,[10][11] Object Pascal[12]
Influenced
Ada 2005, BeanShell, C#, Chapel,[13] Clojure, ECMAScript, Fantom, Gambas,[14] Groovy, Hack,[15] Haxe, J#, Kotlin, PHP, Python, Scala, Seed7, Vala, JavaScript, JS++, ArkTS

Java is a high-level, class-based, object-oriented programming language that is designed to have as few implementation dependencies as possible. It is a general-purpose programming language intended to let programmers write once, run anywhere (WORA),[16] meaning that compiled Java code can run on all platforms that support Java without the need to recompile.[17] Java applications are typically compiled to bytecode that can run on any Java virtual machine (JVM) regardless of the underlying computer architecture. The syntax of Java is similar to C and C++, but has fewer low-level facilities than either of them. The Java runtime provides dynamic capabilities (such as reflection and runtime code modification) that are typically not available in traditional compiled languages.

Java gained popularity shortly after its release, and has been a very popular programming language since then.[18] Java was the third most popular programming language in 2022 according to GitHub.[19] Although still widely popular, there has been a gradual decline in use of Java in recent years with other languages using JVM gaining popularity.[20]

Java was originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems. It was released in May 1995 as a core component of Sun's Java platform. The original and reference implementation Java compilers, virtual machines, and class libraries were originally released by Sun under proprietary licenses. As of May 2007, in compliance with the specifications of the Java Community Process, Sun had relicensed most of its Java technologies under the GPL-2.0-only license. Oracle offers its own HotSpot Java Virtual Machine, however the official reference implementation is the OpenJDK JVM which is free open-source software and used by most developers and is the default JVM for almost all Linux distributions.

As of September 2024, Java 23 is the latest version (Java 22, and 20 are no longer maintained). Java 8, 11, 17, and 21 are previous LTS versions still officially supported.

  1. ^ Binstock, Andrew (May 20, 2015). "Java's 20 Years of Innovation". Forbes. Archived from the original on March 14, 2016. Retrieved March 18, 2016.
  2. ^ a b c d Barbara Liskov with John Guttag (2000). Program Development in Java – Abstraction, Specification, and Object-Oriented Design. USA, Addison Wesley. ISBN 978-0-201-65768-5.
  3. ^ Chaudhary, Harry H. (July 28, 2014). "Cracking The Java Programming Interview :: 2000+ Java Interview Que/Ans". Archived from the original on September 29, 2023. Retrieved May 29, 2016.
  4. ^ Java 5.0 added several new language features (the enhanced for loop, autoboxing, varargs and annotations), after they were introduced in the similar (and competing) C# language. [1] Archived March 19, 2011, at the Wayback Machine [2] Archived January 7, 2006, at the Wayback Machine
  5. ^ Gosling, James; McGilton, Henry (May 1996). "The Java Language Environment". Archived from the original on May 6, 2014. Retrieved May 6, 2014.
  6. ^ Gosling, James; Joy, Bill; Steele, Guy; Bracha, Gilad. "The Java Language Specification, 2nd Edition". Archived from the original on August 5, 2011. Retrieved February 8, 2008.
  7. ^ "The A-Z of Programming Languages: Modula-3". Computerworld. Archived from the original on January 5, 2009. Retrieved June 9, 2010.
  8. ^ Niklaus Wirth stated on a number of public occasions, e.g. in a lecture at the Polytechnic Museum, Moscow in September 2005 (several independent first-hand accounts in Russian exist, e.g. one with an audio recording: Filippova, Elena (September 22, 2005). "Niklaus Wirth's lecture at the Polytechnic Museum in Moscow". Archived from the original on December 1, 2020. Retrieved November 20, 2011.), that the Sun Java design team licensed the Oberon compiler sources a number of years prior to the release of Java and examined it: a (relative) compactness, type safety, garbage collection, no multiple inheritance for classes – all these key overall design features are shared by Java and Oberon.
  9. ^ Patrick Naughton cites Objective-C as a strong influence on the design of the Java programming language, stating that notable direct derivatives include Java interfaces (derived from Objective-C's protocol) and primitive wrapper classes. [3] Archived July 13, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
  10. ^ TechMetrix Research (1999). "History of Java" (PDF). Java Application Servers Report. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 29, 2010. The project went ahead under the name green and the language was based on an old model of UCSD Pascal, which makes it possible to generate interpretive code.
  11. ^ "A Conversation with James Gosling – ACM Queue". Queue.acm.org. August 31, 2004. Archived from the original on July 16, 2015. Retrieved June 9, 2010.
  12. ^ The Java Language Team. About Microsoft's "Delegates" (White Paper). JavaSoft, Sun Microsystems, Inc. Archived from the original on June 27, 2012. In the summer of 1996, Sun was designing the precursor to what is now the event model of the AWT and the JavaBeans component architecture. Borland contributed greatly to this process. We looked very carefully at Delphi Object Pascal and built a working prototype of bound method references in order to understand their interaction with the Java programming language and its APIs.
  13. ^ "Chapel spec (Acknowledgements)" (PDF). Cray Inc. October 1, 2015. Archived (PDF) from the original on February 5, 2016. Retrieved January 14, 2016.
  14. ^ "Gambas Documentation Introduction". Gambas Website. Archived from the original on October 9, 2017. Retrieved October 9, 2017.
  15. ^ "Facebook Q&A: Hack brings static typing to PHP world". InfoWorld. March 26, 2014. Archived from the original on February 13, 2015. Retrieved January 11, 2015.
  16. ^ "Write once, run anywhere?". Computer Weekly. May 2, 2002. Archived from the original on August 13, 2021. Retrieved July 27, 2009.
  17. ^ "1.2 Design Goals of the Java Programming Language". Oracle. January 1, 1999. Archived from the original on January 23, 2013. Retrieved January 14, 2013.
  18. ^ Melanson, Mike (August 9, 2022). "Don't call it a comeback: Why Java is still champ". GitHub. Archived from the original on August 25, 2023. Retrieved October 15, 2023.
  19. ^ "The top programming languages". The State of the Octoverse. GitHub. Archived from the original on August 2, 2023. Retrieved October 15, 2023.
  20. ^ McMillan, Robert (August 1, 2013). "Is Java Losing Its Mojo?". Wired. Archived from the original on February 15, 2017. Retrieved October 15, 2023.