Sun Microsystems announced Java at the SunWorld '95 convention on May 23rd, 1995. At the time, Java was described as a programming language that, combined with the HotJava World Wide Web browser, offered the best universal operating system to the online community.

Today we think of Java as the workhorse language of big business rather than the language of the web - a role occupied by JavaScript, a language that bears no relation to Java apart from its misleading name. 

The concept behind Java was to design a programming language whose applications would be available to a user with any kind of operating system, eliminating the problems of translation between Macs, IBM-compatible computers, and Unix machines. This gave rise to its motto:

Write Once, Run Anywhere

Ten years ago when we reported Java Reaches 20th Anniversary, it was Oracle that was celebrating the milestone. This time around it is JetBrains, makers of the Java IDE, IntelliJIDEA, that is marking the occasion and  has produced this video: 

While May 23rd, 1995 was the date on which Java was announced to the world, it had been under development at Sun Microsystems since 1991 where it was codenamed The Green Project.

As a hardware manufacturer Sun wanted to be ready for the next generation of consumer electronics such as smart toasters, interactive TVs, and other futuristic gadgets.The team charged with delivering the requisite software was led by James Gosling, Mike Sheridan, and Patrick Naughton and they felt they needed a completely new platform-independent language that could run on any device, no matter the hardware. 

The language they built was called Oak, named after the tree outside Gosling’s office window. But when they tried to release Oak into the wild, they found out the name was already trademarked and so had to come up with an alternative. Legend has it the shortlist included names like “DNA”, “Silk” and “Lyric”, but it was “Java” that was chosen - presumably because the team drank a lot of coffee while coding. 

To know more of Java's history see Java - A Language Of The 90s and to understand its current standing see Where's Java Going In 2025?

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