An Introduction to Java and Its History

Java has been consistently ranked among the top ten most popular programming languages in the world, and even after 28 years, it continues to be one of the most influential languages. Sun Microsystems officially released Java 1.0 in 1996, and it was able to overcome well-established languages like C/C++ to become one of the most commonly used programming languages. Over the years the number of Java’s competitors grew to include C#, Groovy, Clojure, Scala, and Kotlin, among others, all of which have at some point been predicted to be the one that would bury Java, but clearly that has not happened (otherwise, you wouldn’t be reading this book). This chapter is a short history lesson about the language you are about to learn; if you are not interested in the historical perspective, feel free to skip to Chapter 2.