Java: 20 years of innovation

20 years ago, on May 23, the first version of Java was released ( 20-year timeline ). Many people are elated on the subject of “innovativeness” of Java (against the background of the same C #) and slow development. But, despite all the difficulties, the platform is developing, fortunately. Take at least some pretty impressive changes in Java 8, the same lambdas that have been waiting for so long.

Today, much of the server software is written in Java. However, two decades ago, other requirements were placed on the programming language. It was supposed to be a good universal programming language for desktops.

Java appeared at an extremely important moment in programming history. Until then, three languages ​​reigned in software development: Fortran in scientific computing, COBOL in business and C (C ++ was just beginning to spread) in all other manifestations of commercial programming.
')
Less popular languages ​​filled narrow niches: Ada (military), Pascal (amateur programming and software for small businesses), Smalltalk and Lisp (academia), Perl (system administrators), etc. But the basis was, of course, the big three.

In recent years, Java has been used on mobile platforms, thanks to Android. It is a pity, however, that there is no possibility to use Java 8.

Georges Saab, Oracle Vice President, Java Platform Development, said:

“For 20 years of growth and development, Java has become one of the most significant and trustworthy technologies in the industry. Those who chose Java were rewarded many times by the increase in performance, scalability, reliability, compatibility, and functionality. The Java Ecosystem offers excellent libraries, frameworks, development environments, and resources for programmers, from beginners to experts. Java technology itself is being developed transparently in the OpenJDK Community. We are pleased to enter the next twentieth anniversary of the evolution of Java, the results of which are not slow in coming due to the significant contributions from Oracle, as well as the contributions of other community members. ”

In general, congratulations to all of us!

PS Do not be lazy to look at the infographics from the guys from JetBrains . They also offer a discount until the end of the month in honor of the holiday.