Java, one of the world’s most popular programming languages, has officially turned 30 – but it’s still a long way from reaching its twilight years.
The programming language was first released in May 1995, and its launch came at a pivotal time in the development of the world wide web. The programming language was perfectly suited to cater for growing interactivity and multimedia requirements.
Java was created by James Gosling while working at Sun Microsystems, which was acquired by Oracle in 2010. Java development began some years before as part of a project – originally called ‘Oak’ – aimed at revolutionizing interactive television.
Ultimately, it proved slightly ahead of its time and the team behind the project pivoted to develop and fully flesh out the programming language. But with the rise of the web and more complex networking requirements, Gosling and co were wary of the potential pitfalls less portable languages could create in years ahead.
It was a solid call on their part. In an interview with ITPro way back in 2007, Gosling noted that “most of the stuff we talked about back then has happened, even though at the time it seemed like extreme science fiction”.
So what makes Java tick, and what’s the secret sauce behind its longevity?
Java’s timeless appeal
Java is a high-level, general purpose, object-oriented programming (OOP) language and was designed with a C/C++ style syntax that developers at the time would have found very familiar.
The language itself is very reliable and known for its ease of use, which also contributed to its popularity upon release. It was easy for developers to jump on the bandwagon and get going – and they sure did.
From the release of its first public version (Java 1.0) in 1996 to 2001, more than two and a half million developers globally were using the language in their daily workflows.
Today, Java still powers many of the popular websites and applications we use in our daily lives and remains the go-to language for many Android developers.
Indeed, figures from JetBrains’ 2024 State of the Developer Ecosystem report showed 30% of developers cited Java as their primary language. Similar research last year also showed the programming language was experiencing somewhat of a renaissance, with enterprises planning to ramp up Java developer recruitment.
The Java Developer Productivity Report from Perforce showed investment was rising significantly, with nearly two-thirds (60%) of respondents planning to bring on more devs specializing in the language.
Java’s popularity among developers has remained modest over its long life, but admittedly peaked in the early noughties. Regardless, recent statistics from the Tiobe Index ranked the programming language in fourth place behind Python – which itself is experiencing a surge in popularity – C++, and C.
Despite its age, Dewan Ahmed, principal developer advocate at Harness, said Java still plays a critical role underpinning the tech stacks of enterprises globally.
“Java may be turning 30, but it’s far from showing its age – as it continues to underpin much of modern software development,” he said.
“Java’s longevity lies in a rare balance: consistent backward compatibility paired with continuous evolution. The Java Virtual Machine’s “write once, run anywhere” principle still resonates, while the syntax has evolved over the years to become more concise, without sacrificing its stability.”
The longevity of the programming language is also partly down to enterprise frameworks such as Spring Boot and Jakarta EE, Ahmed noted. These have ensured the programming language remains relevant amidst an age of cloud-native and microservices architectures.
“This vast ecosystem of libraries and tools, combined with widespread enterprise adoption, gives Java staying power that newer languages struggle to match,” he said.
Java in the age of memory safety
Another key appeal for Java at the ripe old age of 30 is the fact it remains a memory-safe language. Security agencies on both sides of the Atlantic have issued repeated warnings to enterprises about the dangers of memory-unsafe programming languages in recent years.
Languages such as C and C++ all suffer from one key weakness – they’re vulnerable to bugs that threat actors can pounce on. Some of these vulnerabilities include – but aren’t limited to – buffer overflow weaknesses or out of bounds read/write flaws.
These underlying memory-related weaknesses can be manipulated by threat actors to devastating effect. Analysis from Google in 2023, for example, estimated that three-quarters of CVEs used in zero-day exploits targeted memory safety flaws.
What next for Java?
According to Ahmed, Java’s long-term relevance will “hinge on how effectively it adapts to the asks of AI, cloud, and edge computing”.
There are ongoing initiatives which aim to meet these demands, however, such as Project Panama for example, which he said enables AI workloads to run more efficiently on hardware resources.
“In the cloud, ahead-of-time compilation via GraalVM is poised to become more mainstream, while advanced garbage collectors like ZGC and Shenandoah promise to minimize pause times for latency-sensitive applications like real-time analytics,” Ahmed added.
“These capabilities will ensure Java remains performant in modern, distributed environments and suggest it will remain so long into the AI-centric future.”
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