From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Java language" redirects here. For the natural language from the Indonesian island of Java, see
Javanese language.
This article is about a programming language. For the software package downloaded from java.com, see
Java SE.
Not to be confused with
JavaScript.
Java
Paradigm multi-paradigm:
object-oriented (
class-based),
structured,
imperative,
generic,
reflective,
concurrentDesigned by James Gosling and
Sun MicrosystemsDeveloper Oracle CorporationFirst appeared 1995; 21 years ago
[1]Typing discipline Static, strong, safe,
nominative,
manifestLicense GNU General Public License,
Java Community ProcessFilename extensions .java ,
.class,
.jarWebsite
java.comMajor
implementationsOpenJDK,
GNU Compiler for Java(gcj),
many othersDialectsGeneric Java,
PizzaInfluenced by
Ada 83,
C++,
C#,
[2] Eiffel,
[3] Generic Java,
Mesa,
[4] Modula-3,
[5] Oberon,
[6] Objective-C,
[7]UCSD Pascal,
[8][9] Object Pascal[10]Influenced
Ada 2005,
BeanShell,
C#,
Chapel,
[11] Clojure,
ECMAScript,
Fantom,
Groovy,
Hack,
[12] Haxe,
J#,
JavaScript,
Kotlin,
PHP,
Python,
Scala,
Seed7,
Vala Java Programming at Wikibooks
Java is a general-purpose
computer programming language that is
concurrent,
class-based,
object-oriented,
[13] and specifically designed to have as few implementation dependencies as possible. It is intended to let application developers "
write once, run anywhere" (WORA),
[14] meaning that
compiled Java code can run on all platforms that support Java without the need for recompilation.
[15] Java applications are typically compiled to
bytecode that can run on any
Java virtual machine (JVM) regardless of
computer architecture. As of 2016, Java is one of the most
popular programming languages in use,
[16][17][18][19] particularly for client-server web applications, with a reported 9 million developers.[
citation needed] Java was originally developed by
James Gosling at
Sun Microsystems (which has since been
acquired by Oracle Corporation) and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems'
Java platform. The language derives much of its
syntax from
C and
C++, but it has fewer
low-level facilities than either of them.
The original and
reference implementation Java
compilers, virtual machines, and
class libraries were originally released by Sun under proprietary licences. As of May 2007, in compliance with the specifications of the
Java Community Process, Sun relicensed most of its Java technologies under the
GNU General Public License. Others have also developed alternative implementations of these Sun technologies, such as the
GNU Compiler for Java (bytecode compiler),
GNU Classpath (standard libraries), and
IcedTea-Web (browser plugin for applets).
The latest version is Java 8, which is the only version currently supported for free by Oracle, although earlier versions are supported both by Oracle and other companies on a commercia