Oracle and the Community Celebrate 20 Years of Java - Seite 2

Evolution of the World's #1 Programming Language

Introduced in 1995, Java is the programming language of choice for 9 million developers and today powers 7 billion devices. Improving road and air safety, collecting information from the world's oceans for science applications, increasing grain crop quality and quantifying to help feed the hungry, simulating the human brain and musculoskeletal system, and gaming are some of the intriguing projects worldwide that use the Java technology.

Enterprise developers can choose from an ecosystem of 30 Java EE 6 and Java EE 7 compatible implementations from 12 vendors. Additionally, more than 125 million Java-based media devices have been deployed and over 10 billion Java Cards have been shipped since Java's introduction.

For a full timeline of key developments and milestone's in Java's 20-Year history, please visit here.

"Programming languages don't always live a long life, and those that do, don't always enjoy a healthy one," said Al Hilwa, IDC program director for Application Development Research. "But Java has stood the test of time and the test of the vast range of applications using it, from large enterprise systems to small device games."

Under the stewardship of Oracle, two major platform releases including Java 7 and Java 8 have been delivered, with Java 9 slated for 2016. The Java Community Process (JCP) is more open and transparent than ever before, and serves as an integral element of community participation in the ongoing evolution of the technology. The OpenJDK Community, the place to collaborate on an open-source implementation of the Java Platform, Standard Edition, is continuously attracting new contributors to its already broad base of participation.

In March 2014, Oracle announced availability of Java SE 8 after receiving final approval in the Java Community process. This release, which included the largest upgrade to the Java programming model since the platform was introduced in 1995, was developed collaboratively in the OpenJDK Community. Soon after, in April 2014, the Java Platform, Micro Edition 8 (Java ME 8) and the related releases of Oracle's Java Embedded products were also made available after final approval in the Java Community Process. With a consistent Java 8 platform across embedded devices, desktops, data centers and the cloud, customers can deploy applications faster; process and analyze in-flight data; and act on events as quickly as they occur.