Java Introduction
Java is a programming language that produces software for multiple platforms that will run on most operating systems (OS), including Windows, Linux and Mac OS. Java was developed in the mid-1990s by James A. Gosling, a former computer scientist with Sun Microsystems who first released the Java programming language in 1995. In 2010 Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems and the ownership and further development of Java passed to Oracle who released Java version 7 in 2011. Now we are using Java version 11 (released in 2018).
You’re going to find Java everywhere:
- web-applications
- mobile games
- applets for web pages
- computer applications
- and more…
Without Java installed on your computer you will find that lots of applications and websites you would like to use will not work, such is the popularity of Java.
Java is free to download and develop. To run Java you will need the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) which is the run-time portion of Java software and required to run Java in Web browsers. The JRE consists of the Java Virtual Machine (JVM), Java platform core classes, and supporting Java platform libraries.
The Java Plug-in software is a component of the Java Runtime Environment (JRE). The JRE allows applets written in the Java programming language to run inside various browsers. The Java Plug-in software is not a standalone program and cannot be installed separately.
The Java Virtual Machine is only one aspect of Java software that is involved in web interaction. The Java Virtual Machine is built right into your Java software download, and helps run Java applications.
In the next lesson we will discuss options for developing Java code.