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Sprint 05: History and Uses of Java

Java started off with loft goals, and today, it is one of the most popular and widely-used languages throughout the world.

Java Beginnings

Java got its start at Sun Microsystems and was first released to the public in 1995. Development of the language started in 1991 by James Gosling, Mike Sheridan and Patrick Naughton and was designed to be similar to C and C++ to help developers use their existing programming skills for the new language. Sun Microsystems was acquired by Oracle in 2009.

During development, Java was originally called Oak, then renamed Green, and finally released as Java from Java coffee, which is why the logo for Java is of a steaming coffee cup.

Write once, Run anywhere

When it was launched, it promised "write once, run anywhere" meaning that programs you created in Java only needed to be coded once, and they could run on any platform that supported Java.

Java’s Primary Goals

From the very beginning there were five primary goals in the creation of the Java Language

  1. It must be "simple, object-oriented, and familiar"
  2. It must be "robust and secure"
  3. It must be "architecture-neutral and portable"
  4. It must execute with "high performance"
  5. It must be "interpreted, threaded, and dynamic"

Today, Java is one of the most popular languages in use today. Java's heavy use in web applications, enterprise desktop applications with technologies like JavaFX, and the Android ecosystem make it a great language to learn with many flexible ways to use it.

Uses of Java

Since Java was first released it has grown to power many large-scale web applications for e-commerce, finance, and other industries. Java applications are built on the server-side and connect to web servers to handle the business logic of applications.

Java is also the core language of Android and native applications created using Google's Android Studio tools are built using the Java language.

Many frameworks have been created based on the Java programming language to accelerate the development of applications across many platforms and devices.

For web applications, frameworks like Struts, JSF, Grails, Spring and others are used individually, or in combination with each other to provide scalable web apps that can support millions of customers.

For desktop applications, frameworks like JavaFX allow developers to create user interfaces using FXML, an XML-based markup language, and meld that with Java code.

For mobile, the Android SDK from Google contains a tool for developing Android apps, and an emulator to deploy and run your app on a virtual device for testing.

As a developer, there are many coding tools available to you for Java. Integrated Development Environments, or IDEs help combine many of the tasks you need to perform like coding, code management, debugging, working with code repositories and creating documentation. Some of the more popular IDEs are IntelliJ IDEA, Eclipse, and NetBeans. The one we will be using in this course is from IntelliJ.

Java opens up almost unlimited opportunities for you as a developer, and the best thing is that Java is not complicated to learn or understand once you get past the basics. Using your new Java skills, you can build apps for almost anything.