Some facts about Java Programming Language and its History

Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems (which is now a subsidiary of Oracle Corporation) and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The Java language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities. Java applications are typically compiled to bytecode (class file) that can run on any Java Virtual Machine (JVM)regardless of computer architecture. The original and reference implementation Java compilers, virtual machines, and class libraries were developed by Sun from 1995. The language, initially called Oak after an oak tree that stood outside Gosling's office, also went by the name Green and ended up later renamed as Java, from a list of random words. Java promised "Write Once, Run Anywhere" (WORA), providing no-cost run-times on popular platforms. Major web browsers soon incorporated the ability to run Java applets within web pages, and Java quickly became popular. In 2006, for marketing purposes, Sun renamed new J2 versions as Java EE, Java ME, and Java SE, respectively. On November 13, 2006, Sun released much of Java as open source software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). On May 8, 2007, Sun finished the process, making all of Java's core code available under free software/open-source distribution terms, aside from a small portion of code to which Sun did not hold the copyright. Platform Independence - This is achieved by compiling the Java language code to an intermediate representation called Java bytecode, instead of directly to platform-specific machine code. Java bytecode instructions are analogous to machine code, but are intended to be interpreted by a virtual machine (VM) written specifically for the host hardware. In brief: Java is a programming language, that allows programs to be written, that can then be run on more than one type of operating system. A program written in Java can run on Windows, UNIX, Linux etc. as long as there is a Java runtime environment installed.