Introduction
History
| Year | Month | Release |
| 1996 | January | Java Development Kit 1.0 (JDK 1.0) |
| 1997 | February | Java Development Kit 1.1 (JDK 1.1) |
| 1998 | December | Java 2 Platform with version 1.2 of the Software Development Kit (SDK 1.2) |
| 1999 | August | Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition (J2SE) |
| December | Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) | |
| 2000 | May | J2SE with version 1.3 of the SDK |
| 2002 | February | J2SE with version 1.4 of the SDK |
| 2004 | September | J2SE with version 5.0 (instead of 1.5) of the JDK |
| 2006 | December | Java SE 6 with version 1.6 of the JDK |
Operating systems supported by Sun: Windows, Linux, Solaris, Macintosh (OS X)
Java compared to C++
| Feature | Description |
| Syntax | Java syntax is similar to C++ syntax. |
| Platforms | Compiled Java code can be run on any platform that has a Java interpreter. C++ code must be compiled once for each type of system that it is going to be run on. |
| Speed | C++ runs faster than Java, but Java is getting faster with each new version. |
| Memory | Java handles most memory operations automatically, while C++ programmers must write code that manages memory. |
Java compared to C#
| Feature | Description |
| Syntax | Java syntax is similar to C# syntax. |
| Platforms | Like compiled Java code, compiled C# code (MSIL) can be run on any system that has the appropriate interpreter. Currently, only Windows has an interpreter for MSIL. |
| Speed | C# runs faster than Java. |
| Memory | Both C# and Java handle most memory operations automatically. |