Java is a general-purpose ,object-oriented programming language developed by Sun Microsystems of USA in 1991. Originally called Oak by James Gosling,one of the inventors of the language.
The Java team which included Patrick Naughton discovered that the existing languages like C and C++ had limitations in terms of both reliability and portability. However they modeled their new language Java on C and C++ but removed a number of features of C and C++ that were considered as source of problems and thus made Java a really simple, reliable, portable and powerful language.
The most striking feature of the language is that it is a platform-neutral language.Java is the first programming language that is not tied to any particular hardware or operating system. Programs developed in Java can be executed anywhere on any system.