History and versions of Java

Before Java emerged as a programming language, C++ was the dominant player in the trade. The primary goals that the creators of Java was to create a language that could tackle most of the things that C++ offered while getting rid of some of the more tedious tasks that came with the earlier languages.
Computer hardware went through a performance and price revolution from 1972 to 1991. Better, faster hardware was available at lesser price and the demand for big and complex software exponentially increased. To accommodate the demand, new development technologies were invented.
The C language developed in 1972 by Dennis Ritchie had taken a decade to become the most popular language amongst programmers. But, with time programmers found that programming in C became tedious with its structural syntax. Although, people attempted solving this problem, it would be later that a new development philosophy was introduced, one named Object-Oriented Programming. With OOP, a person may write a certain code which may be reused later without rewriting the code over and over again. In 1979, Bjarne Stroustrup developed C++, an enhancement to the C language with included OOP fundamentals and features.

Behind closed doors, a project was initiated in December of 1990, whose aim was to create a programming tool that could render obsolete the C and C++ programming languages. Engineer Patrick Naughton had become extremely frustrated with the state of Sun's C++ and C APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) and tools. While he was considering to move towards NEXT, he was offered a chance to work on new technology and the Stealth Project was started, a secret nobody but he knew.

This Stealth Project was later named the Green Project when James Gosling and Mike Sheridan joined Patrick. Over the period of time that the Green Project teethed, the prospects of the project started becoming clearer to the engineers working on it. No longer was its aim to create a new language far superior to the present ones, but it aimed to target the language to devices other than the computer.

Staffed at 13 people, they began work in a small office on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park, California. This team would be called Green Team henceforth in time. The project they underwent was chartered by Sun Microsystems to anticipate and plan for the "next-wave" in computing. For the team, this meant at least one significant trend, that of the convergence of digitally controlled consumer devices and computers.

Versions:

Major release versions of Java, along with their release dates:

• JDK 1.0 (January 21, 1996)
• JDK 1.1 (February 19, 1997)
• J2SE 1.2 (December 8, 1998)
• J2SE 1.3 (May 8, 2000)
• J2SE 1.4 (February 6, 2002)
• J2SE 5.0 (September 30, 2004)
• Java SE 6 (December 11, 2006)
• Java SE 7 (July 28, 2011)
• Java SE 8 (March 18, 2014)