Java Versions, Features and History

 

JDK Version 1.0

Codenamed Oak and released on January 23, 1996.

JDK Version 1.1

Released on February 19, 1997

New features in JDK 1.1

• JDBC (Java Database Connectivity)
• Inner Classes
• Java Beans
• RMI (Remote Method Invocation)
• Reflection (introspection only)

J2SE Version 1.2

Code named Playground and released on December 8, 1998.

New features in J2SE 1.2

• Collections framework.
• Java String memory map for constants.
• Just In Time (JIT) compiler.
• Jar Signer for signing Java ARchive (JAR) files.
• Policy Tool for granting access to system resources.
• Java Foundation Classes (JFC) which consists of Swing 1.0, Drag and Drop, and Java 2D class libraries.
• Java Plug-in
• Scrollable result sets, BLOB, CLOB, batch update, user-defined types in JDBC.
• Audio support in Applets.

J2SE Version 1.3

Code named Kestrel and released on May 8, 2000.

New features in J2SE 1.3

• Java Sound
• Jar Indexing
• A huge list of enhancements in almost all the java area.

J2SE Version 1.4

Code named Merlin and released on February 6, 2002 (first release under JCP).

New features in J2SE 1.4

• XML Processing
• Java Print Service
• Logging API
• Java Web Start
• JDBC 3.0 API
• Assertions
• Preferences API
• Chained Exception
• IPv6 Support
• Regular Expressions
• Image I/O API

J2SE Version 5.0

Code named Tiger and released on September 30, 2004.

New features in J2SE 5.0

• Generics
• Enhanced for Loop
• Autoboxing/Unboxing
• Typesafe Enums
• Varargs
• Static Import
• Metadata (Annotations)
• Instrumentation

Java Version SE 6

Code named Mustang and released on December 11, 2006.

New features in Java SE 6

• Scripting Language Support
• JDBC 4.0 API
• Java Compiler API
• Pluggable Annotations
• Native PKI, Java GSS, Kerberos and LDAP support.
• Integrated Web Services.
• Lot more enhancements.

Java Version SE 7

Code named Dolphin and released on July 28, 2011.

New features in Java SE 7

• Strings in switch Statement
• Type Inference for Generic Instance Creation
• Multiple Exception Handling
• Support for Dynamic Languages
• Try with Resources
• Java nio Package
• Binary Literals, underscore in literals
• Diamond Syntax
• Automatic null Handling

Java SE 8

Java 8 was released on 18 March 2014. The code name culture is dropped with Java 8 and so no official code name going forward from Java 8.

New features in Java SE 8

• Lambda Expressions
• Pipelines and Streams
• Date and Time API
• Default Methods
• Type Annotations
• Nashhorn JavaScript Engine
• Concurrent Accumulators
• Parallel operations
• PermGen Error Removed
• TLS SNI