Java is a high-level, class-based, object-orientedprogramming language that is designed to have as few implementation dependencies as possible. It is a general-purpose programming language intended to let programmerswrite once, run anywhere (WORA),[16] meaning that compiled Java code can run on all platforms that support Java without the need to recompile.[17] Java applications are typically compiled to bytecode that can run on any Java virtual machine (JVM) regardless of the underlying computer architecture. The syntax of Java is similar to C and C++, but has fewer low-level facilities than either of them. The Java runtime provides dynamic capabilities (such as reflection and runtime code modification) that are typically not available in traditional compiled languages.
Java gained popularity shortly after its release, and has been a very popular programming language since then.[18] Java was the third most popular programming language in 2022[update] according to GitHub.[19] Although still widely popular, there has been a gradual decline in use of Java in recent years with other languages using JVM gaining popularity.[20]
As of September 2024[update], Java 23 is the latest version (Java 22, and 20 are no longer maintained). Java 8, 11, 17, and 21 are previous LTS versions still officially supported.
^Niklaus Wirth stated on a number of public occasions, e.g. in a lecture at the Polytechnic Museum, Moscow in September 2005 (several independent first-hand accounts in Russian exist, e.g. one with an audio recording: Filippova, Elena (September 22, 2005). "Niklaus Wirth's lecture at the Polytechnic Museum in Moscow". Archived from the original on December 1, 2020. Retrieved November 20, 2011.), that the Sun Java design team licensed the Oberon compiler sources a number of years prior to the release of Java and examined it: a (relative) compactness, type safety, garbage collection, no multiple inheritance for classes – all these key overall design features are shared by Java and Oberon.
^Patrick Naughton cites Objective-C as a strong influence on the design of the Java programming language, stating that notable direct derivatives include Java interfaces (derived from Objective-C's protocol) and primitive wrapper classes. [3]Archived July 13, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
^TechMetrix Research (1999). "History of Java"(PDF). Java Application Servers Report. Archived from the original(PDF) on December 29, 2010. The project went ahead under the name green and the language was based on an old model of UCSD Pascal, which makes it possible to generate interpretive code.
^The Java Language Team. About Microsoft's "Delegates" (White Paper). JavaSoft, Sun Microsystems, Inc. Archived from the original on June 27, 2012. In the summer of 1996, Sun was designing the precursor to what is now the event model of the AWT and the JavaBeans component architecture. Borland contributed greatly to this process. We looked very carefully at Delphi Object Pascal and built a working prototype of bound method references in order to understand their interaction with the Java programming language and its APIs.