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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>Java</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="../../jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="../index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="../J.html" title="J"/><link rel="previous" href="jaggies.html" title="jaggies"/><link rel="next" href="JCL.html" title="JCL"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">Java</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="jaggies.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">J</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="JCL.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="Java"/><dt xmlns="" id="Java"><b>Java</b></dt></dt><dd><p> An object-oriented language originally developed at Sun by James
Gosling (and known by the name &#8220;<span class="quote">Oak</span>&#8221;) with the intention of
being the successor to <a href="../C/C-plus-plus.html"><i class="glossterm">C++</i></a> (the project was however
originally sold to Sun as an embedded language for use in set-top boxes).
After the great Internet explosion of 1993-1994, Java was hacked into a
byte-interpreted language and became the focus of a relentless hype
campaign by Sun, which touted it as the new language of choice for
distributed applications.</p><p>Java is indeed a stronger and cleaner design than C++ and has been
embraced by many in the hacker community &#8212; but it has been a
considerable source of frustration to many others, for reasons ranging from
uneven support on different Web browser platforms, performance issues, and
some notorious deficiencies in some of the standard toolkits (AWT in
particular). <a href="../M/Microsoft.html"><i class="glossterm">Microsoft</i></a>'s determined attempts to
corrupt the language (which it rightly sees as a threat to its OS monopoly)
have not helped. As of 2003, these issues are still in the process of
being resolved.</p><p>Despite many attractive features and a good design, it is difficult
to find people willing to praise Java who have tried to implement a
complex, real-world system with it (but to be fair it is early days yet,
and no other language has ever been forced to spend its childhood under the
limelight the way Java has). On the other hand, Java has already been a
big <a href="../W/win.html"><i class="glossterm">win</i></a> in academic circles, where it has taken the
place of <a href="../P/Pascal.html"><i class="glossterm">Pascal</i></a> as the preferred tool for teaching
the basics of good programming to the next generation of hackers.</p></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="jaggies.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../J.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="JCL.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">jaggies </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> JCL</td></tr></table></div></body></html>