1.Introduction to Programming in Java

Java is a computer programming language that is concurrent, class-based, object-oriented, and specifically designed to have as few implementation dependencies as possible. It is intended to let application developers "write once, run anywhere" (WORA), meaning that code that runs on one platform does not need to be recompiled to run on another.

Java applications are typically compiled to byte code (class file) that can run on any Java virtual machine (JVM) regardless of computer architecture. Java is, as of 2014, one of the most popular programming languages in use, particularly for client-server web applications, with a reported 9 million developers. Java was originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems (which has since merged into Oracle Corporation) and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++, but it has fewer low-level facilities than either of them.

Sun Microsystems released the first public implementation as Java 1.0 in 1995. It promised "Write Once, Run anywhere" (WORA), providing no-cost run-times on popular platforms. Fairly secure and featuring configurable security, it allowed network- and file-access restrictions. Major web browsers soon incorporated the ability to run Java applets within web pages, and Java quickly became popular. With the advent of Java 2(released initially as J2SE 1.2 in December 1998 – 1999), new versions had multiple configurations built for different types of platforms. For example, J2EE targeted enterprise applications and the greatly stripped-down version J2ME for mobile applications (Mobile Java). J2SE designated the Standard Edition. In 2006, for marketing purposes, Sun renamed new J2 versions as Java EE, Java ME, and Java SE, respectively.

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)

There were five primary goals in the creation of the Java language
====================================================
1. It should be "simple, object-oriented and familiar"
2. It should be "robust and secure"
3. It should be "architecture-neutral and portable"
4. It should execute with "high performance"
5. It should be "interpreted, threaded, and dynamic"