History

The Java language was used in several projects while it was being designed. Originally Java was intended for use in programming consumer devices. However, it turned out to be a great language for programming for the Internet.

The Java Programming Language was designed and implemented by a small team of people headed by James Golsing at Sun Microsystems in Mountain View, California. James Gosling is also the author of Unix Emacs and the NeWs window system.

In 1990, James Gosling started the design of a new programming language that was meant to be more appropriate for consumer electronics, without the problems of traditional languages such as C and C++. Programs written in C and C++ have to be compiled for one particular computer chip. This is not very conducive for writing software for a variety of small platforms. The result is Java, a very small, fast, reliable language that will work for all kinds of computer chips.

Why is it called Java?
The Java was originally called Oak by James Gosling. His inspiration for this name was a large oak tree outside his office window at Sun Microsystems. Later, the Java Development team discovered that Oak was the name of another programming language that preceded Sun’s language, so another name had to be chosen. An inspiration struck one day during a trip to the local coffee shop…..Java.