The Birth of Java!!

The Members - Team Green Project

Sun Microsystem's Green Project team in 1990, which was headed by James Gosling, wanted to develop a special software that could wield Consumer Electronic Devices. They explored many programming languages and finally concluded that C++ (which used object oriented programming technique) may be satisfying their needs. But during the initial development phase they found it was not platform-independent and faced many problems. They wanted a new language that would be platform-independent and hence developed the descendant of C++. It had similar syntax to C++ with portable features enabled. They named it as "OAK" inspired by an Oak Tree that was seen from their cubicle. The team validated their new language OAK to control house-hold appliances using touch-sensitive remote in 1991. The World Wide Web on the internet renovated the text-based internet into graphic-rich user-friendly internet. At this juncture the team proposed the idea of developing Web Applets (tiny programs) using OAK that could run on all systems connected to internet. The team then introduced HotJava (a web browser to locate and run applets on internet). HotJava demonstrated the power of OAK and made it crowd-pleasing on the internet. In 1995, an issue raised stating there existed a programming language named OAK. So the team arranged for a meeting with a Naming Consultant and concluded the name as "JAVA" (which is not a acronym). Many popular companies including Microsoft and Netscape Navigator promulgated their strong support to JAVA.