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Java (software platform)

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Long-term support ( LTS ) is a product lifecycle management policy in which a stable release of computer software is maintained for a longer period of time than the standard edition. The term is typically reserved for open-source software , where it describes a software edition that is supported for months or years longer than the software's standard edition.

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81-463: 21.0.5 LTS (October 15, 2024 ; 40 days ago  ( 2024-10-15 ) ) [±] 17.0.13 LTS (October 15, 2024 ; 40 days ago  ( 2024-10-15 ) ) [±] 11.0.25 LTS (October 15, 2024 ; 40 days ago  ( 2024-10-15 ) ) [±] Java is a set of computer software and specifications that provides a software platform for developing application software and deploying it in

162-561: A Win16 application running on Windows XP using the Windows on Windows feature in XP. An example of legacy hardware are legacy ports like PS/2 and VGA ports, and CPUs with older, incompatible instruction sets (with e.g. newer operating systems). Examples in legacy software include legacy file formats like .swf for Adobe Flash or .123 for Lotus 1-2-3 , and text files encoded with legacy character encodings like EBCDIC . The first use of

243-461: A cross-platform computing environment. Java is used in a wide variety of computing platforms from embedded devices and mobile phones to enterprise servers and supercomputers . Java applets , which are less common than standalone Java applications, were commonly run in secure, sandboxed environments to provide many features of native applications through being embedded in HTML pages. Writing in

324-510: A data warehouse . In either case, the effect on business intelligence and operational reporting can be significant. A legacy system may include procedures or terminology which are no longer relevant in the current context, and may hinder or confuse understanding of the methods or technologies used. Organizations can have compelling reasons for keeping a legacy system, such as: Legacy systems are considered to be potentially problematic by some software engineers for several reasons. Where it

405-671: A trademark search revealed that Oak Technology used the name Oak . Sun priced Java licenses below cost to gain market share. Although Java 1.0a became available for download in 1994, the first public release of Java, Java 1.0a2 with the HotJava browser, came on May 23, 1995, announced by Gage at the SunWorld conference. Accompanying Gage's announcement, Marc Andreessen , Executive Vice President of Netscape Communications Corporation , unexpectedly announced that Netscape browsers would include Java support. On January 9, 1996, Sun Microsystems formed

486-446: A virtual machine ), a compiler and a set of libraries ; there may also be additional servers and alternative libraries that depend on the requirements. Java platforms have been implemented for a wide variety of hardware and operating systems with a view to enable Java programs to run identically on all of them. The Java platform consists of several programs, each of which provides a portion of its overall capabilities. For example,

567-628: A Java-like language first named J++ , then called Visual J# that was incompatible with the Java specification. It was discontinued 2007, and support for it ended in 2015. The JVM specification gives a lot of leeway to implementors regarding the implementation details. Since Java 1.3, JRE from Oracle contains a JVM called HotSpot. It has been designed to be a high-performance JVM. To speed-up code execution, HotSpot relies on just-in-time compilation. To speed-up object allocation and garbage collection, HotSpot uses generational heap. The Java virtual machine heap

648-521: A `challenge` to current coders to create code that is "like other legacies in our lives—like the antiques, heirlooms, and stories that are cherished and lovingly passed down from one generation to the next. What if legacy code was something we took pride in?". The term legacy support is often used in conjunction with legacy systems. The term may refer to a feature of modern software. For example, Operating systems with "legacy support" can detect and use older hardware. The term may also be used to refer to

729-406: A business function; e.g. a software or hardware vendor that is supporting, or providing software maintenance , for older products. A "legacy" product may be a product that is no longer sold, has lost substantial market share, or is a version of a product that is not current. A legacy product may have some advantage over a modern product making it appealing for customers to keep it around. A product

810-647: A challenging and error-prone task. The team also worried about the C++ language's lack of portable facilities for security, distributed programming , and threading . Finally, they wanted a platform that would port easily to all types of devices. Bill Joy had envisioned a new language combining Mesa and C. In a paper called Further , he proposed to Sun that its engineers should produce an object-oriented environment based on C++. Initially, Gosling attempted to modify and extend C++ (a proposed development that he referred to as "C++ ++ --") but soon abandoned that in favor of creating

891-496: A flaw occurs in software, it is called a regression . Two ways that a software publisher or maintainer can reduce the risk of regression are to release major updates less frequently, and to allow users to test an alternate, updated version of the software. LTS software applies these two risk-reduction strategies. The LTS edition of the software is published in parallel with the STS (short-term support) edition. Since major updates to

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972-511: A new language, which he called Oak , after the tree that stood just outside his office. By the summer of 1992, the team could demonstrate portions of the new platform, including the Green OS , the Oak language, the libraries, and the hardware. Their first demonstration, on September 3, 1992, focused on building a personal digital assistant (PDA) device named Star7 that had a graphical interface and

1053-610: A proposal for a set-top box platform. However, the cable industry felt that their platform gave too much control to the user, so Firstperson lost their bid to SGI . An additional deal with The 3DO Company for a set-top box also failed to materialize. Unable to generate interest within the television industry, the company was rolled back into Sun. In June and July 1994 – after three days of brainstorming with John Gage (the Director of Science for Sun), Gosling, Joy, Naughton, Wayne Rosing , and Eric Schmidt  –

1134-464: A separate legacy system, or a legacy customer using an old feature or software version. While the term usually refers to source code, it can also apply to executable code that no longer runs on a later version of a system, or requires a compatibility layer to do so. An example would be a classic Macintosh application which will not run natively on macOS , but runs inside the Classic environment , or

1215-463: A short delay during loading and once they have "warmed up" by being all or mostly JIT-compiled, tend to run about as fast as native programs. Since JRE version 1.2, Sun's JVM implementation has included a just-in-time compiler instead of an interpreter. Although Java programs are cross-platform or platform independent, the code of the Java Virtual Machines (JVM) that execute these programs

1296-472: A single unit. Third parties have produced many compilers or interpreters that target the JVM. Some of these are for existing languages, while others are for extensions to the Java language. These include: The success of Java and its write once, run anywhere concept has led to other similar efforts, notably the .NET Framework , appearing since 2002, which incorporates many of the successful aspects of Java. .NET

1377-609: A small office on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park, California . They aimed to develop new technology for programming next-generation smart appliances, which Sun expected to offer major new opportunities. The team originally considered using C++, but rejected it for several reasons. Because they were developing an embedded system with limited resources, they decided that C++ needed too much memory and that its complexity led to developer errors. The language's lack of garbage collection meant that programmers had to manually manage system memory,

1458-494: A smart agent called "Duke" to assist the user. In November of that year, the Green Project was spun off to become Firstperson , a wholly owned subsidiary of Sun Microsystems, and the team relocated to Palo Alto, California . The Firstperson team had an interest in building highly interactive devices, and when Time Warner issued a request for proposal (RFP) for a set-top box , Firstperson changed their target and responded with

1539-428: A specific LTS version in addition to a normal release cycle. Many projects, such as CentOS , provide a long period of support for every release. Legacy software In computing , a legacy system is an old method, technology, computer system , or application program , "of, relating to, or being a previous or outdated computer system", yet still in use. Often referencing a system as "legacy" means that it paved

1620-629: A supported version. Oracle released the last free-for-commercial-use public update for the legacy Java 8 LTS in January 2019, and will continue to support Java 8 with public updates for personal use indefinitely. Oracle extended support for Java 6 ended in December 2018. The Java platform is a suite of programs that facilitate developing and running programs written in the Java programming language. A Java platform includes an execution engine (called

1701-447: A system is out of date, a legacy system can continue to be used for a variety of reasons. It may simply be that the system still provides for the users' needs. In addition, the decision to keep an old system may be influenced by economic reasons such as return on investment challenges or vendor lock-in , the inherent challenges of change management , or a variety of other reasons other than functionality. Backward compatibility (such as

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1782-484: A very simple memory model where objects are allocated on the heap (while some implementations e.g. all currently supported by Oracle, may use escape analysis optimization to allocate on the stack instead) and all variables of object types are references . Memory management is handled through integrated automatic garbage collection performed by the JVM. The latest version is Java 22 released in March 2024, and

1863-480: Is a JIT (Just In Time) compiler within the Java Virtual Machine , or JVM. The JIT compiler translates the Java bytecode into native processor instructions at run-time and caches the native code in memory during execution. The use of bytecode as an intermediate language permits Java programs to run on any platform that has a virtual machine available. The use of a JIT compiler means that Java applications, after

1944-491: Is a term that distinguishes the support policy for the software's standard edition. STS software has a comparatively short life cycle, and may be afforded new features that are omitted from the LTS edition to avoid potentially compromising the stability or compatibility of the LTS release. LTS applies the tenets of reliability engineering to the software development process and software release life cycle . Long-term support extends

2025-438: Is impossible to replace legacy systems through the practice of application retirement , it is still possible to enhance (or "re-face") them. Most development often goes into adding new interfaces to a legacy system. The most prominent technique is to provide a Web-based interface to a terminal-based mainframe application. This may reduce staff productivity due to slower response times and slower mouse-based operator actions, yet it

2106-804: Is not. Every supported operating platform has its own JVM. The Java Development Kit (JDK) is a distribution of Java technology by Oracle Corporation . It implements the Java Language Specification (JLS) and the Java Virtual Machine Specification (JVMS) and provides the Standard Edition (SE) of the Java Application Programming Interface (API). It is derivative of the community driven OpenJDK which Oracle stewards. It provides software for working with Java applications. Examples of included software are

2187-410: Is often seen as an "upgrade", because the interface style is familiar to unskilled users and is easy for them to use. John McCormick discusses such strategies that involve middleware . Printing improvements are problematic because legacy software systems often add no formatting instructions, or they use protocols that are not usable in modern PC/Windows printers. A print server can be used to intercept

2268-567: Is only truly "obsolete" if it has an advantage to nobody —if no person making a rational decision would choose to acquire it new. The term "legacy mode" often refers specifically to backward compatibility . A software product that is capable of performing as though it were a previous version of itself, is said to be "running in legacy mode". This kind of feature is common in operating systems and internet browsers, where many applications depend on these underlying components. The computer mainframe era saw many applications running in legacy mode. In

2349-434: Is the area of memory used by the JVM for dynamic memory allocation . In HotSpot the heap is divided into generations : The permanent generation (or permgen ) was used for class definitions and associated metadata prior to Java 8. Permanent generation was not part of the heap. The permanent generation was removed from Java 8. Originally there was no permanent generation, and objects and classes were stored together in

2430-535: The Java compiler , which converts Java source code into Java bytecode (an intermediate language for the JVM), is provided as part of the Java Development Kit (JDK). The Java Runtime Environment (JRE), complementing the JVM with a just-in-time (JIT) compiler , converts intermediate bytecode into native machine code on the fly. The Java platform also includes an extensive set of libraries. The essential components in

2511-622: The Java programming language is the primary way to produce code that will be deployed as byte code in a Java virtual machine (JVM); byte code compilers are also available for other languages, including Ada , JavaScript , Kotlin (Google's preferred Android language), Python , and Ruby . In addition, several languages have been designed to run natively on the JVM, including Clojure , Groovy , and Scala . Java syntax borrows heavily from C and C++ , but object-oriented features are modeled after Smalltalk and Objective-C . Java eschews certain low-level constructs such as pointers and has

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2592-513: The Oracle Solaris operating system and SPARC architecture. The Java Runtime Environment (JRE) released by Oracle is a freely available software distribution containing a stand-alone JVM (HotSpot), the Java standard library ( Java Class Library ), a configuration tool, and—until its discontinuation in JDK 9—a browser plug-in. It is the most common Java environment installed on personal computers in

2673-539: The for-each loop , generics , autoboxing and var-args . Java SE 6 (December 11, 2006) – Codename Mustang . It was bundled with a database manager and facilitates the use of scripting languages with the JVM (such as JavaScript using Mozilla 's Rhino engine). As of this version, Sun replaced the name "J2SE" with Java SE and dropped the ".0" from the version number. Other major changes include support for pluggable annotations ( JSR 269 ), many GUI improvements, including native UI enhancements to support

2754-523: The C++/ C programming languages. Engineer Patrick Naughton had become increasingly frustrated with the state of Sun's C++ and C application programming interfaces (APIs) and tools, as well as with the way the NeWS project was handled by the organization. Naughton informed Scott McNealy about his plan of leaving Sun and moving to NeXT ; McNealy asked him to pretend he was God and send him an e-mail explaining how to fix

2835-433: The JVM specification. (Instead, Google 's Android development tools take Java programs as input and output Dalvik bytecode, which is the native input format for the virtual machine on Android devices.) The last Critical Path Update version of JRE with an Oracle BCL Agreement was 8u201 and, the last Patch Set Update version with the same license was 8u202. The last Oracle JRE implementation, regardless of its licensing scheme,

2916-620: The Java platform. The Java Language Specification (JLS) specifies the language; changes to the JLS are managed under JSR 901. Sun released JDK 1.1 on February 19, 1997. Major additions included an extensive retooling of the Abstract Window Toolkit (AWT) event model, inner classes added to the language, JavaBeans , and Java Database Connectivity (JDBC). J2SE 1.2 (December 8, 1998) – Codename Playground . This and subsequent releases through J2SE 5.0 were rebranded Java 2 and

2997-517: The Java virtual machine, a compiler, performance monitoring tools, a debugger, and other utilities that Oracle considers useful for Java programmers. Oracle releases the current version of the software under the Oracle No-Fee Terms and Conditions (NFTC) license. Oracle releases binaries for the x86-64 architecture for Windows, macOS, and Linux based operating systems, and for the aarch64 architecture for macOS and Linux. Previous versions supported

3078-523: The JavaSoft group to develop the technology. While the so-called Java applets for web browsers no longer are the most popular use of Java (with it e.g. more used server-side) or the most popular way to run code client-side (JavaScript took over as more popular), it still is possible to run Java (or other JVM languages such as Kotlin) in web browsers, even after JVM support has been dropped from them, using e.g. TeaVM . On November 13, 2006, Sun Microsystems made

3159-542: The Project Nashorn JavaScript runtime, a new Date and Time API inspired by Joda Time, and the removal of PermGen. This version is not officially supported on the Windows XP platform, but is known to work there. Thus, due to the end of Java 7's lifecycle it is the recommended version for XP users. Previously, only an unofficial manual installation method had been described for Windows XP SP3. It refers to JDK8,

3240-430: The STS edition are published more frequently, it offers LTS users a preview of changes that might be incorporated into the LTS edition when those changes are judged to be of sufficient quality . While using older versions of software may avoid the risks associated with upgrading, it may introduce the risk of losing support for the old software. Long-term support addresses this by assuring users and administrators that

3321-464: The Space Shuttle program. Thus any new system that started the certification process becomes a de facto legacy system by the time it is approved for flight. Additionally, the entire Space Shuttle system, including ground and launch vehicle assets, was designed to work together as a closed system. Since the specifications did not change, all of the certified systems and components performed well in

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3402-444: The ability of newer systems to handle legacy file formats and character encodings ) is a goal that software developers often include in their work. Even if a legacy system is no longer used, it may continue to impact the organization due to its historical role. Historic data may not have been converted into the new system format and may exist within the new system with the use of a customized schema crosswalk , or may exist only in

3483-692: The bulk of its implementation of Java available under the GNU General Public License (GPL). The Java language has undergone several changes since the release of JDK ( Java Development Kit ) 1.0 on January 23, 1996, as well as numerous additions of classes and packages to the standard library . Since J2SE 1.4 the Java Community Process (JCP) has governed the evolution of the Java Language. The JCP uses Java Specification Requests (JSRs) to propose and specify additions and changes to

3564-437: The capability to use and maintain the system are crucial. Otherwise the system will become less and less understandable and maintainable. According to Hein, verification, validation, testing, and operational history increases the confidence in a system's reliability and quality. However, accumulating this history is often expensive. NASA's now retired Space Shuttle program used a large amount of 1970s-era technology. Replacement

3645-743: The changes can be incorporated quickly and easily in the ABP software. Model-driven reverse and forward engineering approaches can be also used for the improvement of legacy software. Andreas M. Hein researched the use of legacy systems in space exploration at the Technical University of Munich. According to Hein, legacy systems are attractive for reuse if an organization has the capabilities for verification, validation, testing, and operational history. These capabilities must be integrated into various software life cycle phases such as development, implementation, usage, or maintenance. For software systems,

3726-501: The class libraries provide an abstract interface to tasks that would normally depend heavily on the hardware and operating system. Tasks such as network access and file access are often heavily intertwined with the distinctive implementations of each platform. The java.net and java.io libraries implement an abstraction layer in native OS code, then provide a standard interface for the Java applications to perform those tasks. Finally, when some underlying platform does not support all of

3807-533: The company. Naughton envisioned the creation of a small team that could work autonomously without the bureaucracy that was stalling other Sun projects. McNealy forwarded the message to other important people at Sun, and the Stealth Project started. The Stealth Project was soon renamed to the Green Project , with James Gosling and Mike Sheridan joining Naughton. Together with other engineers, they began work in

3888-417: The conclusion of the support period, the product either reaches end-of-life , or receives a reduced level of support for a period of time (e.g., high-priority security patches only). Before upgrading software, a decision-maker might consider the risk and cost of the upgrade. As software developers add new features and fix software bugs, they may introduce new bugs or break old functionality. When such

3969-684: The core classes. A Java Plug-in was released, and Sun's JVM was equipped with a JIT compiler for the first time. J2SE 1.3 (May 8, 2000) – Codename Kestrel . Notable changes included the bundling of the HotSpot JVM (the HotSpot JVM was first released in April, 1999 for the J2SE ;1.2 JVM), JavaSound , Java Naming and Directory Interface (JNDI) and Java Platform Debugger Architecture (JPDA). J2SE 1.4 (February 6, 2002) – Codename Merlin . This became

4050-911: The cost of replacing business logic is about five times that of reuse, even discounting the risk of system failures and security breaches. Ideally, businesses would never have to rewrite most core business logic: debits = credits is a perennial requirement. The IT industry is responding with "legacy modernization" and "legacy transformation": refurbishing existing business logic with new user interfaces, sometimes using screen scraping and service-enabled access through web services . These techniques allow organizations to understand their existing code assets (using discovery tools), provide new user and application interfaces to existing code, improve workflow, contain costs, minimize risk, and enjoy classic qualities of service (near 100% uptime, security, scalability, etc.). This trend also invites reflection on what makes legacy systems so durable. Technologists are relearning

4131-403: The data and translate it to a more modern code. Rich Text Format (RTF) or PostScript documents may be created in the legacy application and then interpreted at a PC before being printed. Biometric security measures are difficult to implement on legacy systems. A workable solution is to use a Telnet or HTTP proxy server to sit between users and the mainframe to implement secure access to

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4212-620: The developing platform for Java that also includes a fully functioning Java Runtime Environment . Java 8 is supported on Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, Windows Vista SP2 and Windows 7 SP1, Ubuntu 12.04 LTS and higher (and some other OSes). Java SE 9 and 10 have higher system requirements, i.e. Windows 7 or Server 2012 (and web browser minimum certified is upped to Internet Explorer 11 or other web browsers), and Oracle dropped 32-bit compatibility for all platforms, i.e. only Oracle's " 64-bit Java virtual machines (JVMs) are certified". Long-term support Short-term support (STS)

4293-575: The discontinuation of the Java browser plug-in, any web page might have potentially run a Java applet, which provided an easily accessible attack surface to malicious web sites. In 2013 Kaspersky Labs reported that the Java plug-in was the method of choice for computer criminals. Java exploits are included in many exploit packs that hackers deploy onto hacked web sites. Java applets were removed in Java 11, released on September 25, 2018. The Java platform and language began as an internal project at Sun Microsystems in December 1990, providing an alternative to

4374-412: The features a Java application expects, the class libraries work to gracefully handle the absent components, either by emulation to provide a substitute, or at least by providing a consistent way to check for the presence of a specific feature. The word "Java", alone, usually refers to Java programming language that was designed for use with the Java platform. Programming languages are typically outside of

4455-563: The first release of the Java platform developed under the Java Community Process as JSR 59. Major changes included regular expressions modeled after Perl , exception chaining , an integrated XML parser and XSLT processor ( JAXP ), and Java Web Start . J2SE 5.0 (September 30, 2004) – Codename Tiger . It was originally numbered 1.5, which is still used as the internal version number. Developed under JSR 176, Tiger added several significant new language features including

4536-427: The importance of sound architecture from the start, to avoid costly and risky rewrites. The most common legacy systems tend to be those which embraced well-known IT architectural principles, with careful planning and strict methodology during implementation. Poorly designed systems often don't last, both because they wear out and because their inherent faults invite replacement. Thus, many organizations are rediscovering

4617-521: The laptop and desktop form factor . Mobile phones including feature phones and early smartphones that ship with a JVM are most likely to include a JVM meant to run applications targeting Micro Edition of the Java platform. Meanwhile, most modern smartphones, tablet computers , and other handheld PCs that run Java apps are most likely to do so through support of the Android operating system , which includes an open source virtual machine incompatible with

4698-823: The latest long-term support (LTS) version is Java 21 released in September 2023, which is one of a few LTS versions still supported, down to Java 8 LTS. As an open source platform, Java has many distributors, including Amazon , IBM , Azul Systems , and AdoptOpenJDK . Distributions include Amazon Corretto, Zulu, AdoptOpenJDK, and Liberica. Regarding Oracle, it distributes Java 8, and also makes available e.g. Java 11, both also currently supported LTS versions. Oracle (and others) "highly recommend that you uninstall older versions of Java" than Java 8, because of serious risks due to unresolved security issues. Since Java 9 (as well as versions 10, and 12–16, and 18–20) are no longer supported, Oracle advises its users to "immediately transition" to

4779-411: The legacy application. The change being undertaken in some organizations is to switch to automated business process (ABP) software which generates complete systems. These systems can then interface to the organizations' legacy systems and use them as data repositories . This approach can provide a number of significant benefits: the users are insulated from the inefficiencies of their legacy systems, and

4860-491: The look and feel of Windows Vista , and improvements to the Java Platform Debugger Architecture (JPDA) & JVM Tool Interface for better monitoring and troubleshooting. Java SE 7 (July 28, 2011) – Codename Dolphin . This version developed under JSR 336. It added many small language changes including strings in switch, try-with-resources and type inference for generic instance creation. The JVM

4941-458: The mental burden and ramp-up time for software engineers who work on the codebase. Legacy code may have zero or insufficient automated tests , making refactoring dangerous and likely to introduce bugs . Long-lived code is susceptible to software rot , where changes to the runtime environment, or surrounding software or hardware may require maintenance or emulation of some kind to keep working. Legacy code may be present to support legacy hardware,

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5022-431: The modern business computing environment, n-tier , or 3-tier architectures are more difficult to place into legacy mode as they include many components making up a single system. Virtualization technology is a recent innovation allowing legacy systems to continue to operate on modern hardware by running older operating systems and browsers on a software system that emulates legacy hardware. Programmers have borrowed

5103-671: The period of software maintenance ; it also alters the type and frequency of software updates ( patches ) to reduce the risk , expense, and disruption of software deployment , while promoting the dependability of the software. It does not necessarily imply technical support . At the beginning of a long-term support period, the software developers impose a feature freeze : They make patches to correct software bugs and vulnerabilities , but do not introduce new features that may cause regression . The software maintainer either distributes patches individually, or packages them in maintenance releases , point releases , or service packs . At

5184-457: The platform are the Java language compiler, the libraries, and the runtime environment in which Java intermediate bytecode executes according to the rules laid out in the virtual machine specification. Different platforms target different classes of device and application domains : Java Platform, Standard Edition (Java SE) is a computing platform for development and deployment of portable code for desktop and server environments. Java SE

5265-471: The programmer's job. This code is typically provided as a set of dynamically loadable libraries that applications can call at runtime. Because the Java platform is not dependent on any specific operating system, applications cannot rely on any of the pre-existing OS libraries. Instead, the Java platform provides a comprehensive set of its own standard class libraries containing many of the same reusable functions commonly found in modern operating systems. Most of

5346-552: The roles for which they were designed. Even before the Shuttle was scheduled to be retired in 2010, NASA found it advantageous to keep using many pieces of 1970s technology rather than to upgrade those systems and recertify the new components. Some in the software engineering prefer to describe "legacy code" without the connotation of being obsolete. Among the most prevalent neutral conceptions are source code inherited from someone else and source code inherited from an older version of

5427-493: The same area. But as class unloading occurs much more rarely than objects are collected, moving class structures to a specific area allowed significant performance improvements. The Java JRE is installed on a large number of computers. End users with an out-of-date version of JRE therefore are vulnerable to many known attacks. This led to the widely shared belief that Java is inherently insecure. Since Java 1.7, Oracle's JRE for Windows includes automatic update functionality. Before

5508-523: The scope of the phrase "platform", although the Java programming language was listed as a core part of the Java platform before Java 7. The language and runtime were therefore commonly considered a single unit. However, an effort was made with the Java ;7 specification to more clearly treat the Java language and the Java Virtual Machine as separate entities, so that they are no longer considered

5589-456: The software . Eli Lopian, CEO of Typemock, has defined it as "code that developers are afraid to change". Michael Feathers introduced a definition of legacy code as code without tests , which reflects the perspective of legacy code being difficult to work with in part due to a lack of automated regression tests . He also defined characterization tests to start putting legacy code under test. Ginny Hendry characterized creation of code as

5670-465: The software will be maintained for a specific period of time, and that updates selected for publication will carry a significantly reduced risk of regression. The maintainers of LTS software only publish updates that either have low IT risk or that reduce IT risk (such as security patches ). Patches for LTS software are published with the understanding that installing them is less risky than not installing them. This table only lists software that have

5751-563: The system library is also written in Java. For instance, the Swing library paints the user interface and handles the events itself, eliminating many subtle differences between how different platforms handle components. The Java class libraries serve three purposes within the Java platform. First, like other standard code libraries, the Java libraries provide the programmer a well-known set of functions to perform common tasks, such as maintaining lists of items or performing complex string parsing. Second,

5832-518: The team re-targeted the platform for the World Wide Web . They felt that with the advent of graphical web browsers like Mosaic the Internet could evolve into the same highly interactive medium that they had envisioned for cable TV. As a prototype, Naughton wrote a small browser, WebRunner (named after the movie Blade Runner ), renamed HotJava in 1995. Sun renamed the Oak language to Java after

5913-478: The term brownfield from the construction industry, where previously developed land (often polluted and abandoned) is described as brownfield . There is an alternate favorable opinion—growing since the end of the Dotcom bubble in 1999—that legacy systems are simply computer systems in working use: " Legacy code " often differs from its suggested alternative by actually working and scaling. IT analysts estimate that

5994-412: The term legacy to describe computer systems probably occurred in the 1960s. By the 1980s it was commonly used to refer to existing computer systems to distinguish them from the design and implementation of new systems. Legacy was often heard during a conversion process, for example, when moving data from the legacy system to a new database. While this term may indicate that some engineers may feel that

6075-416: The version name "J2SE" ( Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition ) replaced JDK to distinguish the base platform from J2EE ( Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition ) and J2ME ( Java 2 Platform, Micro Edition ). Major additions included reflection , a collections framework, Java IDL (an interface description language implementation for CORBA interoperability), and the integration of the Swing graphical API into

6156-503: The way for the standards that would follow it. This can also imply that the system is out of date or in need of replacement. Legacy code is old computer source code that is no longer supported on standard hardware and environments, and is a codebase that is in some respect obsolete or supporting something obsolete. Legacy code may be written in programming languages, use frameworks and external libraries, or use architecture and patterns that are no longer considered modern, increasing

6237-422: Was 9.0.4. Since Java Platform SE 9, the whole platform also was grouped into modules . The modularization of Java SE implementations allows developers to bundle their applications together with all the modules used by them, instead of solely relying on the presence of a suitable Java SE implementation in the user device. In most modern operating systems (OSs), a large body of reusable code is provided to simplify

6318-632: Was built from the ground-up to support multiple programming languages, while the Java platform was initially built to support only the Java language, although many other languages have been made for JVM since. Like Java, .NET languages compile to byte code and are executed by the Common Language Runtime (CLR), which is similar in purpose to the JVM. Like the JVM, the CLR provides memory management through automatic garbage collection, and allows .NET byte code to run on multiple operating systems. .NET included

6399-407: Was cost-prohibitive because of the expensive requirement for flight certification. The original hardware completed the expensive integration and certification requirement for flight, but any new equipment would have had to go through that entire process again. This long and detailed process required extensive tests of the new components in their new configurations before a single unit could be used in

6480-616: Was extended with support for dynamic languages, while the class library was extended among others with a join/fork framework, an improved new file I/O library and support for new network protocols such as SCTP . Java 7 Update 76 was released in January 2015, with expiration date April 14, 2015. In June 2016, after the last public update of Java 7, " remotely exploitable " security bugs in Java 6, 7, and 8 were announced. Java SE 8 (March 18, 2014) – Codename Kenai . Notable changes include language-level support for lambda expressions ( closures ) and default methods,

6561-417: Was formerly known as Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition (J2SE). The heart of the Java platform is the "virtual machine" that executes Java bytecode programs. This bytecode is the same no matter what hardware or operating system the program is running under. However, new versions, such as for Java 10 (and earlier), have made small changes, meaning the bytecode is in general only forward compatible . There

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