In 1990, Sun Microsystems Inc.
(US) was conceived a project to develop software for consumer electronic
devices that could be controlled by a remote. This project was called Stealth
Project but later its name was changed to Green Project.
In January of 1991, Bill Joy,
James Gosling, Mike Sheradin, Patrick Naughton, and several others met in
Aspen, Colorado to discuss this project. Mike Sheradin was to focus on business
development; Patrick Naughton was to begin work on the graphics system; and
James Gosling was to identify the proper programming language for the project.
Gosling thought C and C++ could be used to develop the project. But the problem
he faced with them is that they were system dependent languages and hence could
not be used on various processors, which the electronic devices might use. So
he started developing a new language, which was completely system independent.
This language was initially called Oak. Since this name was registered by some
other company, later it was changed to Java
Why the name Java? James Gosling and his team members were
consuming a lot of tea while developing this language. They felt that they were
able to develop a better language because of the good quality tea they had
consumed. So the tea also had its own role in developing this language and
hence, they fixed the name for the language as Java. Thus, the symbol for Java
is tea cup and saucer.
By September of 1994, Naughton and Jonathan Payne started writing WebRunner a Java-based Web browser, which was later renamed as HotJava. By October 1994, HotJava was stable and was demonstrated to Sun executives. HotJava was the first browser, having the capabilities of executing applets, which are programs designed to run dynamically on Internet. This time, Java's potential in the context of the World Wide Web was recognized.
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