ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an introduction to Java and discusses some of its most important features. The language was initially called Greentalk and it was then renamed to Oak, because of an oak tree that stood outside Gosling's office, while in 1994, it was finally renamed to Java, inspired by Java coffee. In C/C++, the source code is translated into machine language, which depends on the computer architecture. On the other hand, Java is a portable and cross-platform programming language, meaning that a Java program may run on any system without having to recompile the program. The only requirement set for the system is to support the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). The source code is compiled into an "intermediate" specialized format called bytecode, which is the machine language of a virtual architecture and specifically that of JVM. A Java package is a namespace that contain classes, interfaces, and other packages, called subpackages.
