Java Version Changes history
The Java language has undergone several changes since JDK 1.0 as well as numerous additions of classes and packages to the standard library. Since J2SE 1.4, the evolution of the Java language has been governed by the Java Community Process (JCP), which uses Java Specification Requests (JSRs) to propose and specify additions and changes to the Java platform. The language is specified by the Java Language Specification (JLS); changes to the JLS are managed under JSR 901
In addition to the language changes, much more dramatic changes have been made to the Java Class Library over the years, which has grown from a few hundred classes in JDK 1.0 to over three thousand in J2SE 5. Entire new APIs, such as Swing and Java2D, have been introduced, and many of the original JDK 1.0 classes and methods have been deprecated. Some programs allow conversion of Java programs from one version of the Java platform to an older one (for example Java 5.0 backported to 1.4) (see Java backporting tools).
1 JDK Alpha and Beta (1995)
2 JDK 1.0 (January 23, 1996)
3 JDK 1.1 (February 19, 1997)
4 J2SE 1.2 (December 8, 1998)
5 J2SE 1.3 (May 8, 2000)
6 J2SE 1.4 (February 6, 2002)
7 J2SE 5.0 (September 30, 2004)
8 Java SE 6 (December 11, 2006)
8. 1 Java 6 updates
9 Java SE 7 (July 28, 2011)
9. 1 Java 7 updates
10 Java SE 8 (March 18, 2014)
10. 1 Java 8 updates
11 Java SE 9
12 Java SE 10
JDK 1.0 (January 23, 1996)
Originally called Oak. Initial release The first stable version, JDK 1.0.2, is called Java 1.
Note : In versions of Java and the JDK up to 1.0.1, private and protected keywords could be used together to create yet another form of protection that would restrict access to methods or variables solely to subclasses of a given class. As of 1.0.2, this capability has been removed from the language.
JDK 1.1 (February 19, 1997)
Major additions included:
an extensive retooling of the AWT event model
inner classes added to the language
JavaBeans
JDBC
RMI
reflection which supported Introspection only, no modification at runtime was possible.
JIT(Just In Time) compiler on Microsoft Windows platforms, produced for JavaSoft by Symantec
J2SE 1.2 (December 8, 1998)
Codename Playground. This and subsequent releases through J2SE 5.0 were rebranded retrospectively Java 2 and the version name "J2SE" (Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition) replaced JDK to distinguish the base platform from J2EE (Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition) and J2ME (Java 2 Platform, Micro Edition). This was a very significant release of Java as it tripled the size of the Java platform to 1520 classes in 59 packages. Major additions included:
strictfp keyword
the Swing graphical API was integrated into the core classes
Sun's JVM was equipped with a JIT compiler for the first time
Java plug-in
Java IDL, an IDL implementation for CORBA interoperability
Collections framework
J2SE 1.3 (May 8, 2000)
Codename Kestrel. The most notable changes were:
HotSpot JVM included (the HotSpot JVM was first released in April 1999 for the J2SE 1.2 JVM)
RMI was modified to support optional compatibility with CORBA
Java Naming and Directory Interface (JNDI) included in core libraries (previously available as an extension)
Java Platform Debugger Architecture (JPDA)
JavaSound
Synthetic proxy classes
J2SE 1.4 (February 6, 2002)
Codename Merlin. This was the first release of the Java platform developed under the Java Community Process as JSR 59. Major changes included:
Language changes
assert keyword (Specified in JSR 41.)
Library improvements
regular expressions modeled after Perl regular expressions
exception chaining allows an exception to encapsulate original lower-level exception
Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) support
non-blocking IO (named New Input/Output, NIO) (Specified in JSR 51.)
logging API (Specified in JSR 47.)
image I/O API for reading and writing images in formats like JPEG and PNG
integrated XML parser and XSLT processor (JAXP) (Specified in JSR 5 and JSR 63.)
integrated security and cryptography extensions (JCE, JSSE, JAAS)
Java Web Start included (Java Web Start was first released in March 2001 for J2SE 1.3) (Specified in JSR 56.)
Preferences API (java.util.prefs)
Support and security updates for Java 1.4 ended in October 2008.
J2SE 5.0 (September 30, 2004)
Codename Tiger. Originally numbered 1.5, which is still used as the internal version number. The number was changed to "better reflect the level of maturity, stability, scalability and security of the J2SE. This version was developed under JSR 176.
J2SE 5.0 entered its end-of-public-updates period on April 8, 2008; updates are no longer available to the public as of November 3, 2009. Updates were available to Oracle Customers until May 2014.
Tiger added a number of significant new language features:
Generics: Provides compile-time (static) type safety for collections and eliminates the need for most typecasts (type conversion). (Specified by JSR 14.)
Metadata: Also called annotations; allows language constructs such as classes and methods to be tagged with additional data, which can then be processed by metadata-aware utilities. (Specified by JSR 175.)
Autoboxing/unboxing: Automatic conversions between primitive types (such as int) and primitive wrapper classes (such as Integer). (Specified by JSR 201.)
Enumerations: The enum keyword creates a typesafe, ordered list of values (such as Day.MONDAY, Day.TUESDAY, etc.). Previously this could only be achieved by non-typesafe constant integers or manually constructed classes (typesafe enum pattern). (Specified by JSR 201.)
Varargs: The last parameter of a method can now be declared using a type name followed by three dots (e.g. void drawtext(String... lines)). In the calling code any number of parameters of that type can be used and they are then placed in an array to be passed to the method, or alternatively the calling code can pass an array of that type.
Enhanced for each loop: The for loop syntax is extended with special syntax for iterating over each member of either an array or any Iterable, such as the standard Collection classes. (Specified by JSR 201.)
Fix the previously broken semantics of the Java Memory Model, which defines how threads interact through memory.
Static imports
There were also the following improvements to the standard libraries:
Automatic stub generation for RMI objects.
Swing: New skinnable look and feel, called synth.
The concurrency utilities in package java.util.concurrent.
Scanner class for parsing data from various input streams and buffers.
Java 5 is the last release of Java to officially support the Microsoft Windows 9x line (Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME), while Windows Vista is the newest version of Windows that J2SE 5 was supported on prior to Java 5 going end of life in October 2009.
Java 5 Update 5 (1.5.0_05) is the last release of Java to work without any problems on Windows NT 4.0.
Java 5 is the default version of Java installed on Apple Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard). Java 6 can be installed and set as the default to be used on 64-bit (Core 2 Duo and higher) processor machines. Java 6 is also supported by 32-bit machines running Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard).
Java SE 6 (December 11, 2006)
Codename Mustang. As of this version, Sun replaced the name "J2SE" with Java SE and dropped the ".0" from the version number. Internal numbering for developers remains 1.6.0. This version was developed under JSR 270.
During the development phase, new builds including enhancements and bug fixes were released approximately weekly. Beta versions were released in February and June 2006, leading up to a final release that occurred on December 11, 2006.
Major changes included in this version:
Support for older Win9x versions dropped; unofficially, Java 6 Update 7 was the last release of Java shown to work on these versions of Windows.[citation needed] This is believed[by whom?] to be due to the major changes in Update 10.
Scripting Language Support (JSR 223): Generic API for tight integration with scripting languages, and built-in Mozilla JavaScript Rhino integration
Dramatic performance improvements for the core platform, and Swing.
Improved Web Service support through JAX-WS (JSR 224)
JDBC 4.0 support (JSR 221).
Java Compiler API (JSR 199): an API allowing a Java program to select and invoke a Java Compiler programmatically.
Upgrade of JAXB to version 2.0: Including integration of a StAX parser.
Support for pluggable annotations (JSR 269)
Many GUI improvements, such as integration of SwingWorker in the API, table sorting and filtering, and true Swing double-buffering (eliminating the gray-area effect).
JVM improvements include: synchronization and compiler performance optimizations, new algorithms and upgrades to existing garbage collection algorithms, and application start-up performance.
Java 6 reached the end of its supported life in February 2013, at which time all public updates, including security updates, were scheduled to be stopped.Oracle released one more update to Java 6 in March 2013, which patched some security vulnerabilities.
Java SE 7 (July 28, 2011)
Java 7 (codename Dolphin) is a major update that was launched on July 7, 2011 and was made available for developers on July 28, 2011.[96] The development period was organized into thirteen milestones; on June 6, 2011, the last of the thirteen milestones was finished. On average, 8 builds (which generally included enhancements and bug fixes) were released per milestone. The feature list at the OpenJDK 7 project lists many of the changes.
Additions in Java 7 include:
JVM support for dynamic languages, with the new invokedynamic bytecode under JSR-292,
following the prototyping work currently done on the Multi Language Virtual Machine
Compressed 64-bit pointers (available in Java 6 with -XX:+UseCompressedOops)
These small language changes (grouped under a project named Coin):
Strings in switch
Automatic resource management in try-statement
Improved type inference for generic instance creation, aka the diamond operator <>
Simplified varargs method declaration
Binary integer literals
Allowing underscores in numeric literals
Catching multiple exception types and rethrowing exceptions with improved type checking
Concurrency utilities under JSR 166
New file I/O library to enhance platform independence and add support for metadata and symbolic links. The new packages are java.nio.file and java.nio.file.attribute
Timsort is used to sort collections and arrays of objects instead of merge sort
Library-level support for elliptic curve cryptography algorithms
An XRender pipeline for Java 2D, which improves handling of features specific to modern GPUs
New platform APIs for the graphics features originally implemented in version 6u10 as unsupported APIs
Enhanced library-level support for new network protocols, including SCTP and Sockets Direct Protocol
Upstream updates to XML and Unicode
Lambda (Java's implementation of lambda functions), Jigsaw (Java's implementation of modules), and part of Coin were dropped from Java 7, and released as part of Java 8 (except for Jigsaw, which will be in Java 9).
From April 2012, Java 7 has been the default version to download on java.com.
