History of Versions of java

In 1995,java was developed in web browsers only. At that time it has two versions ALPHA and BETA java.but it was was highly unstable.The supplied web browser was renamed WebRunner.
JDK1.0
It was the first official version of java which was stable.It was released on 23 january 1996.In this version we could use bprivate and protected together to create yet another form of protection that would restrict access to methods or variables.
JDK1.1
this version was released on 19 February 1997. In rthis following nimprovements were made-

• extensive retooling of the AWT events.
• inner classes were added
• JavaBeans
• JDBC
• RMI

Playground(JDK1.2)

It was bintroduced on December 1998.It tripled the size of Java platform to 1520 class in 59 packages.
It has following improvements were made in this version-
• 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

Kestrel(J2SE1.3)

it was introduced on May 8,2000. Following improvements were made in this version-

• 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

 Merlin(J2SE 1.4) 

It was introduced on 6 February 2002.Java 1.4 has improved programmer productivity by expanding language features and available APIs. This was the first release of the Java platform developed under the Java Community Process as JSR 59. 

Major improvements that were introduced with this version are-

• assert keyword (Specified in JSR 41.)

Library improvements of this version-

• 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 NIO) (New Input/Output) (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

Tiger(Java1.5.0 J2SE 5.0) 

It was introduced in September 30, 2004. 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." [12] 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 will be available to Oracle Customers until May 2014.[13]

Tiger added a number of significant new language features:[14][15]

• 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

Mustang(java1.6 Java SE 6 )

It was released on December 11, 2006. As of this version, Sun replaced the name "J2SE" with Java SE and dropped the ".0" from the version number.[19] Internal numbering for developers remains 1.6.0.[20] 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:[21][22]

• 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,[23][24] 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)[25]

• 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.[26]

Java 6 reached the end of its supported life in February 2013, at which time all updates, including security updates, were scheduled to be stopped.[27][28] Oracle released one more update to Java 6 in March 2013, which patched some security vulnerabilities

For more details go to Wikipedia

IN next blog we will discuss about further versions of java