Java at 20: How Java changed programming forever?

Way back in 1995, programming was a very difficult task with most of the programs either being dumped owing to the arithmetic errors or lack of sufficient memory. Porting the source code was almost impossible between the varying versions of UNIX. No one at that time ever heard of operating systems as well as running of the same binary of different processors. With the introduction of Java, everything changed. This programming language proved the need for platform-dependent and manually allocated procedural C code as a necessity in the years to come rather than considering it as a choice. For the first time ever since it was introduced, developers were able to write useful production codes in a cross-platform as well as object-oriented language. Languages that made headlines after it such as C# had to find out a much improved developer productivity that was established by Java.
It was among the pioneer language to make use of Unicode in source code and the native string types that was built as a core tool that was capable enough in implementing the tasks being assigned for it. The best qualities and ideas from the previous languages was merged together in such a way that even a commo
C coder can understand it easily even though Java was not a strict superset of C language. All this features makes it a simpler and easier to learn language compared to other object-oriented C descendants.
It is a language that is not shackled by other essentials as required in other languages such as structs, unions, typedefs as well as header files. Even the need for requirements such as multiple implementation inheritance followed by pointer arithmetic and operator overloading was eliminated in this language compared to other languages where it has been a prerequisite. Several other languages came in to existence after Java was introduced and some made a big impact in the technology industry where as some simply disappeared. However 20 years on, it is still able to uphold its legacy as one of the most popular and powerful programming languages the history has ever seen.
It was also successful in selling applets which were smaller programs that used to run within the web pages. These applets were able to interact effectively with users rather than simply display text or images. But as the years passed by, the application of applets was restricted to simpler games as well as animations owing to the security constraints as well as poor performance of virtual machines that are browser-based. But by the time Java corrected those issues, it was too late and browsers as well as front-end developers opted for other technologies. These were some of the reasons why Flash, JScript and HTML5 even with user-friendly features in delivering dynamic web content failed to impress in the market.
The efficiency of Java however was evident in the Server space. The real problems of businesses were resolved effectively using the Servlets, JSP and enterprise-focused libraries that are based on Java platform. These capabilities helped the programming language achieve a significant place in the standard status among the IT departments across the globe. New technologies are continuously incorporated by Java so as to stay ahead of the competition. It does not matter whether every programmer knows Java; there is no doubt that all of the programmers are nowadays influenced by Java.