Oak (programming language)

Oak was a programming language created by James Gosling in 1991, initially for Sun Microsystems' set-top box project. The language later evolved to become Java.

The name Oak was used by Gosling after an oak tree that stood outside his office.

History

In 1991, Sun Microsystems was attempting to develop a new technology for programming next generation smart appliances, which Sun expected to be a major new opportunity.

The team originally considered using C++, but rejected the idea for several reasons (see Java history).

Initially, Gosling attempted to modify and extend C++ but soon abandoned that in favor of creating a new platform called Green and an entirely new language, which he called Oak, after the tree that stood just outside his office.[1]

By the summer of 1992, they were able to demonstrate portions of the new platform including the Green OS, the Oak language, the libraries, and the hardware. Their first attempt, demonstrated on September 3, 1992, focused on building a PDA device named Star7 which had a graphical interface and a smart agent called "Duke" to assist the user.

Oak was renamed Java in 1994 after a trademark search revealed that Oak was used by Oak Technology.[2] Java 1.0 was finally shipped in 1996.[3]

Differences with Java

Oak was the basis for what Java 1.0 became later, but there were also some differences:[4][5] Several concepts were planned in the Oak specification but remained not implemented in the original language because of time constraints:

Other concepts were different from, or improved later, for Java:[4]

And finally some concepts were later scraped out:

See also

References

  1. Jon Byous (March 12, 2003). "Java Technology: An early history" (PDF). Sun Microsystems. Retrieved 2009-08-02. Gosling called the new language "Oak", after the tree outside his window
  2. Kieron Murphy (April 10, 1996). "So why did they decide to call it Java?". javaworld.com. Retrieved 2009-08-03. The lawyers had told us that we couldn't use the name 'OAK' because [it was already trademarked by] Oak Technologies," said Frank Yellin, a senior engineer at Sun. "So a brainstorming session was held to come up with ideas for a new name
  3. Jonathan I. Schwartz (August 30, 2007). "Different Isn't Always Better, But Better's Always". Retrieved 2009-08-02.
  4. 1 2 3 Heinz Kabutz (July 15, 2003). "Once Upon an Oak ...". artima.com. Retrieved 2009-08-02.
  5. "Oak language specification". FirstPerson, Inc. Archived from the original on March 7, 2012. Retrieved 2015-03-06.
  6. "Java and unsigned int, unsigned short, unsigned byte, unsigned long, etc. (Or rather, the lack thereof)". Retrieved 2009-08-02.
  7. "A Simple Assertion Facility For the Java Programming Language". Sun Microsystems. Retrieved 2009-08-02.
  8. Johannes Rieken (April 24, 2007). "Design by Contract for Java - Revised" (PDF). Retrieved 2010-10-02.
  9. "Support For 'Design by Contract', beyond "a simple assertion facility"". Sun Microsystems. Retrieved 2010-10-02.

External links

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