JAVA

Programming is an interesting field that gives us some superpowers to control computer systems. 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 application developers write once, run anywhere (WORA), meaning that compiled Java code can run on all platforms that support Java without the need for recompilation.

HISTORY OF JAVA

The history of Java is very interesting. Java was originally designed for interactive television, but it was too advanced technology for the digital cable television industry at the time. The principles for creating Java programming were “Simple, Robust, Portable, Platform-independent, Secured, High Performance, Multithreaded, Architecture Neutral, Object-Oriented, Interpreted, and Dynamic”.

Java was developed by James Gosling, who is known as the father of Java, in 1995. James Gosling, Mike Sheridan, and Patrick Naughton initiated the Java language project in June 1991. The small team of sun engineers called Green Team.

Why Java was named “Oak”?

Why Oak? Oak is a symbol of strength and is chosen as a national tree of many countries like the U.S.A., France, Germany, Romania, etc.

In 1995, Oak was renamed “Java” because it was already a trademark by Oak Technologies.

Why Java Programming named “Java”?

Why had they chose the name Java for Java language? The team gathered to choose a new name. The suggested words were “dynamic”, “revolutionary”, “Silk”, “jolt”, “DNA”, etc. They wanted something that reflected the essence of the technology: revolutionary, dynamic, lively, cool, unique, and easy to spell, and fun to say.

According to James Gosling, “Java was one of the top choices along with Silk”. Since Java was so unique, most of the team members preferred Java than other names.

Facts about JAVA

Minecraft Was First Written in Java

Minecraft is one of the most popular video games of all time. Its creator, Notch, first wrote the game in Java simply because it was the programming language that he was comfortable using. After Minecraft was acquired by Microsoft, its new owner released a version in C++.

It’s Dynamic

One of the most interesting Java unknown facts is just how dynamic it is. This can be divided into two categories: Java instrumentations and Java reflections. The first category enables you to modify already compiled classes which will come in handy if you decide to change the code at run time. Open-source libraries such as AspectJ, ASM, and many others allow for Java instrumentations. Reflection enables you to visit the private variable of a class. All of this is very helpful when programming software.

It was All an Accident

We mentioned earlier how James Gosling, the creator of Java, initially gave it a much different name. But it is even more humorous that the invention of the language itself was an accident. James Gosling, together with his team, was cleaning up C++ and ended up with an entirely new language as a result. On the other hand, we should not be too surprised since many devices that we use today such as the microwave, ink-jet printer, x-ray images, and many others have also been invented by accident.

The popularity of Java

We all know that Java is extremely popular, but can we quantify it? First of all, there are more than 9 million Java developers in the world, and it gets downloaded more than a billion times each year.

Free from Pointers

Java is free from the concept of Pointer as adding pointers to Java language would compromise security and the robustness, making this language more complex.

Final keyword

The keyword ‘final’ can be used with class, variable, method and field. This way, all of the attributes become unchangeable, i.e a final class can’t be extended, a final variable can’t be changed, a final method can’t be overridden, and a final field is a constant.