Engineering Education “Today in History” Blog: Release of the first version of the Java programming language
by Alice Agogino
closeAuthor: Alice Agogino
Name: Alice Agogino
Email: agogino@berkeley.edu
Site: http://www.me.berkeley.edu/faculty/agogino/
About: Alice M. Agogino is the Roscoe and Elizabeth Hughes Professor of Mechanical Engineering and is affiliated faculty at the Haas School of Business in their Operations and Information Technology Management Group. Her research interests include: community-based design; sustainable engineering; intelligent learning systems; information retrieval and data mining; multiobjective and strategic product design; nonlinear optimization; probabilistic modeling; intelligent control and manufacturing; sensor validation, fusion and diagnostics; wireless sensor networks; multimedia and computer-aided design; design databases; design theory and methods; MEMS/NEMS synthesis and computer-aided design; artificial intelligence and decision and expert systems; and gender/ethnic equity.
She has served in a number of administrative positions at UC Berkeley, including Chair of the Faculty Senate, Associate Dean of Engineering and Faculty Assistant to the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost in Educational Development and Technology. Prof. Agogino also served as Director for Synthesis, an NSF-sponsored coalition of eight universities with the goal of reforming undergraduate engineering education, and continues as PI for the NEEDS (www.needs.org) and SMETE.ORG digital libraries of courseware in science, mathematics, engineering and technology.
Prof. Agogino received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of New Mexico (1975), M.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering (1978) from the University of California at Berkeley and Ph.D. from the Department of Engineering-Economic Systems at Stanford University (1984). Prior to joining the faculty at UC Berkeley, she worked in industry for Dow Chemical, General Electric and SRI International. She has authored over 150 scholarly publications; has won numerous teaching, best paper and research awards; and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). At NAE she served on the Committee on Engineering Education, working on the Technologically Speaking and the Engineer 2020 projects. She is currently a member of the National Research Council's Board on Education and the Women in Academic Science Engineering Committee. She has supervised 66 MS projects/theses, 26 doctoral dissertations and numerous undergraduate researchers.See Authors Posts (862) · January 23rd, 2013 · 1 Comment
Today in History – January 23, 1996 – The first version of the Java programming language is released. Java was developed independently of the Web, starting in 1991 with a small group of Sun engineers called the “Green Team”. Their vision was that the next wave in computing was the union of digital consumer devices and computers. James Gosling led the team and worked around the clock to release this first version originally called Oak. The Green Team’s first demonstration of their new language was for an interactive, hand-held home-entertainment controller that was originally targeted at the digital cable television industry. The worked focused on business models and end users. They subscribed to what Bill Joy called “Hammer Technology”: taking a bunch of existing stuff and hammering it together. Learning by doing. We built things you can hold and use. This is why we chose as deliverables a set of working prototypes and a business plan.”
Alas it was technology ahead of its time and it didn’t take off immediately. Coincidentally, however, the World Wide Web was also being launched and the Green Team saw its potential and announced in 1995 that the new Netscape Navigator internet browser would incorporate Java technology. The Java language is now the major programming language for the Web and for many other applications, including robotics, mechatronics, and embedded computing.
I highly recommend that interested readers watch the video introduced by Scott McNealy at the 2009 JavaOne general session or James Gosling’s Thoughts for Students. James Gosling narrates this humorous Gospel of Java According to James.
For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s resources on the Java programming language and the history of computing. For related educational resources, visit the Computer Science Education, Information Systems Education, Information Technology Education, Computer Engineering Education or Software Engineering Education disciplinary communities.
Tags: Computer Engineering · Computer Science · Computing · Engineering Management · General Engineering, Engineering Science · Information Systems · Information Technology · Software Engineering
1 response so far ↓
1 Executive MBA in India // Jan 30, 2013 at 3:48 am
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