Java is a general, all-purpose computer programming language that is circumstantial, class-based, object-oriented, and specially designed to have few application dependencies as possible.
Java was developed initially for interactive television, but it was too advanced technology for the digital cable television industry at the time.
It is proposed to let application developers “write once, run anywhere, suggesting that compiled Java code can run on all platforms that condone Java without the necessity to recompile.
Java applications are compiled to bytecode that can run on any Java virtual machine (JVM) regardless of computer architecture.
The Java language project was started by James Gosling, Mike Sheridan, Chris Warth, Patrick Naughton and Ed Frank in June 1991 at Sun Microsystems.
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.
Java team members (also known as Green Team), initiated this project to develop a language for digital devices such as set-top boxes, televisions etc.
But, it was suited for internet programming. Later, Java technology was incorporated by Netscape.
The language was initially called Oak after an oak tree that stood outside Gosling’s office; later on it was named as Green.
Finally the language renamed as Java because during this project the team had consumed a lot of coffee which was imported from island named as Java.
This is also the reason why Java has its logo as a cup of coffee.Sun Microsystems released the first version of Java publicly as Java 1.0 in 1995.
The principles for creating Java programming were "Simple, Robust, Portable, write once, run anywhere(WORA),Platform-independent, Secured, High Performance, Multithreaded, Architecture Neutral, Object-Oriented, Interpreted and Dynamic".
There were following primary goals for creating the Java language
It should be “simple, object-oriented and familiar”