A Complete History of Java (Sort Of)

Well I thought I had posted on the history of Java before, but I just checked and I didn't. The subject has just come up again at work so I'm writing this post for my future reference. Hopefully it will be useful to you as well.

The Java Project and Language

Here are some good links on how it all got started and the languages initial success.

• Sun's official version: Java Technology: The Early Years. You definitely get a good background and there is a list of the key players on the page.


• There is also this nice page on Virginia Tech's web site: History of Java. A slightly different take on things, but informative.


• A timeline of key milestones is available on the main Java site.

The early history is focused on the Java language and its use as a key component of Web browsers. But that is only part of the story.

Server Side Java: Tomcat and Servlets

Java's biggest success has been on the server side of Internet applications. The first part of that story, is the development of servlets and Apache Tomcat.

• The best description of how things got going seems to come from Jim Driscoll's blog: Servlet History. Servlets were conceived by James Gosling and worked on by serveral people listed in the post. Eventually the work was all spec-ified by James Duncan Davidson.


• The reference server and code was donated to the Apache foundation and became Tomcat 3.0.x.

Server Side Java: App Servers

The second part of the server side story is the application servers. At Sun, a number of products were merged together, rewritten, etc..., until we eventually got to the open source Glassfish Server. I found two good pages on the subject.

• First, David Van Couvering has this excellent post where he remembers the evolution of the product.


• Then add to that, this post by Rich Sharples which includes a graphic showing the genealogy of the Glassfish server.

I know I didn't cover J2ME and I'm sure there is a lot of other Java topics I left out too. But what I did find is very interesting stuff. I wish more of it was written down.