JDK Versions

The various JDK versions are:

  1. JDK Alpha and Beta (1995): Sun announced Java in September 23, 1995.
  2. JDK 1.0 (January 23, 1996): Originally called Oak (named after the oak tree outside James Gosling's office). Renamed to Java 1 in JDK 1.0.2.
  3. JDK 1.1 (February 19, 1997): Introduced AWT event model, inner class, JavaBean, JDBC, and RMI.
  4. J2SE 1.2 (JDK 1.2) (December 8, 1998): Re-branded as "Java 2" and renamed JDK to J2SE (Java 2 Standard Edition). Also released J2EE (Java 2 Enterprise Edition) and J2ME (Java 2 Micro Edition). Included JFC (Java Foundation Classes - Swing, Accessibility API, Java 2D, Pluggable Look and Feel and Drag and Drop). Introduced Collection Framework and JIT compiler.
  5. J2SE 1.3 (JDK 1.3) (May 8, 2000): Introduced Hotspot JVM.
  6. J2SE 1.4 (JDK 1.4) (February 6, 2002): Introduced assert, non-blocking IO (nio), logging API, image IO, Java webstart, regular expression support.
  7. J2SE 5.0 (JDK 1.5) (September 30, 2004): Officially called 5.0 instead of 1.5. Introduced generics, autoboxing/unboxing, annotation, enum, varargs, for-each loop, static import.
  8. Java SE 6 (JDK 1.6) (December 11, 2006): Renamed J2SE to Java SE (Java Standard Edition).
  9. Java SE 7 (JDK 1.7) (July 28, 2011): First version after Oracle purchased Sun (called Oracle JDK).
  10. Java SE 8 (JDK 1.8) (March 18, 2014): included support for Lambda expressions, default and static methods in interfaces, improved collection, and JavaScript runtime. Also integrated JavaFX graphics subsystem.
  11. Java SE 9 (JDK 9) (September 21, 2017): introduced modularization of the JDK (module) under project Jigsaw, the Java Shell (jshell), and more.
  12. Java SE 10 (18.3) (JDK 10) (March, 2018): introduced var for type inference local variable (similar to JavaScript). There will be 2 releases each year, in March and September, denoted as yy.m.
  13. Java SE 11 (18.9 LTS) (JDK 11) (September, 2018): extended var to lambda expression. Standardize HTTP client in java.net.http. Support TLS 1.3. Clean up the JDK and the installation package.

Views: 615

Comment

You need to be a member of Codetown to add comments!

Join Codetown

Happy 10th year, JCertif!

Notes

Welcome to Codetown!

Codetown is a social network. It's got blogs, forums, groups, personal pages and more! You might think of Codetown as a funky camper van with lots of compartments for your stuff and a great multimedia system, too! Best of all, Codetown has room for all of your friends.

When you create a profile for yourself you get a personal page automatically. That's where you can be creative and do your own thing. People who want to get to know you will click on your name or picture and…
Continue

Created by Michael Levin Dec 18, 2008 at 6:56pm. Last updated by Michael Levin May 4, 2018.

Looking for Jobs or Staff?

Check out the Codetown Jobs group.

 

Enjoy the site? Support Codetown with your donation.



InfoQ Reading List

11 Sessions Not to Miss at QCon San Francisco 2025

As QCon San Francisco (Nov 17-21, 2025) approaches, the conference's program committee and track hosts are sharing their top picks from this year's lineup. Their selections span a wide range of topics, from AI-accelerated development and platform engineering to resilience patterns and career growth, all with QCon's signature focus on real-world case studies and lessons learned.

By Artenisa Chatziou

Presentation: Building Distributed Event-Driven Architectures Across Multi-Cloud Boundaries

Teena Idnani explains how to architect and build resilient event-driven distributed systems in a multi-cloud reality. Using a fictional bank's migration journey, she shares practical, code-level solutions for overcoming major challenges: managing cross-cloud latency, ensuring event ordering and consistency, building resilience by design, and preventing duplicate events.

By Teena Idnani

GitHub Adds Post-Quantum Secure SSH Key Exchange to Protect Git Data in Transit

GitHub is introducing a hybrid post-quantum secure key exchange algorithm for SSH access when interacting with Git over SSH.

By Craig Risi

Meta Ships React 19.2 Featuring Activity API, Cache Signals, and SSR Enhancements

React 19.2 introduces new APIs and performance improvements focused on better UI control and server rendering. Key additions include the new Activity component for managing UI states without losing component state, and the useEffectEvent hook, which separates event logic from effect dependencies.

By Daniel Curtis

Producing a Better Software Architecture with Residuality Theory

Software architecture is tough because it blends coding, math, and business systems. Due to surprises, architectures tend to become irrelevant over time, Barry O'Reilly said. He presented residuality theory, where he suggested stressing naive architectures to reveal hidden “attractors” in complex business systems. This allows designs to better survive change and uncertainty.

By Ben Linders

© 2025   Created by Michael Levin.   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service