Java Versions, Features and History

Java Versions, Features and History

• Released on 23 January 1996, JDK 1.0 version.
• Released on 19 February 1997 JDK 1.1 version.
  New features in JDK 1.1
  
  1. JDBC (Java Database Connectivity)
  2. Inner Classes
  3. Java Beans
  4. RMI (Remote Method Invocation)
  5. Reflection (introspection only)
• Released on 8 December 1998 J2SE 1.2 version.
  New features in J2SE 1.2
  
  1. Collections framework.
  2. Java String memory map for constants.
  3. Just In Time (JIT) compiler.
  4. Jar Signer for signing Java ARchive (JAR) files.
  5. Policy Tool for granting access to system resources.
  6. Java Foundation Classes (JFC) which consists of Swing 1.0, Drag and Drop, and Java 2D class libraries.
  7. Java Plug-in
  8. Scrollable result sets, BLOB, CLOB, batch update, user-defined types in JDBC.
  9. Audio support in Applets.
• Released on 8 May 2000 J2SE 1.3 version.
  New features in J2SE 1.3
  
  1. Java Sound
  2. Jar Indexing
  3. A huge list of enhancements in almost all the java area.
• Released on 6 February 2002 J2SE 1.4 version.
  New features in J2SE 1.4
  
  1. XML Processing
  2. Java Print Service
  3. Logging API
  4. Java Web Start
  5. JDBC 3.0 API
  6. Assertions
  7. Preferences API
  8. Chained Exception
  9. IPv6 Support
  10. Regular Expressions
  11. Image I/O API
• Released on 30 September 2004 J2SE 1.5 version.
  New features in J2SE 1.5
  
  1. Generics
  2. Enhanced for Loop
  3. Autoboxing/Unboxing
  4. Enum
  5. Varargs
  6. Static Import
  7. Metadata (Annotations)
  8. Instrumentation
• Released on 11 December 2006 J2SE 1.6 version.
  New features in J2SE 1.6
  
  1. Scripting Language Support
  2. JDBC 4.0 API
  3. Java Compiler API
  4. Pluggable Annotations
  5. Native PKI, Java GSS, Kerberos and LDAP support.
  6. Integrated Web Services.
  7. Lot more enhancements.
• Released on 28 July 2011 J2SE 1.7 version.
  New features in J2SE 1.7
  
  1. Strings in switch Statement
  2. Type Inference for Generic Instance Creation
  3. Multiple Exception Handling
  4. Support for Dynamic Languages
  5. Try with Resources
  6. Java nio Package
  7. Binary Literals, underscore in literals
  8. Diamond Syntax
  9. Automatic null Handling
  
  
  

• Released on 18th march 2014 JDK 1.8 version.
  New features in JDK 1.8

           

1. Default and Static methods in Interface
2. Lambda Expressions
3. Optional
4. Streams
5. Method References
6. Data Time API
7. Nashorn Javascript Engine
8. Parallel Arrays