Introduction

Java is a modern, object-oriented, high level programming language. Java can be used to create desktop GUI applications, web applications, mobile and embedded system applications.

Java was created by Sun Microsystems in 1991 and it was first publically released in 1995. Later Sun Microsystems was acquired by Oracle corporation.

The latest version of java standard edition is Java SE 8. Java has multiple editions:
Java standard edition (Java SE)
Java enterprise edition (Java EE)
Java micro edition (Java ME)
JavaFX

These multiple editions were created to support multiple types of platforms. J2ME is for mobile platform and J2EE is for enterprise applications. Java enterprise edition is used to create web applications, component model and enterprise class service oriented architecture. Java SE or Java Standard Edition provides tools and API's that is used to create server applications, desktop applications and applets.

 Setting up development environment

For starting java development, you need to install Java development kit i.e. JDK on your machine. You can visit Oracle's website or just google for JDK and install it.

You will also need a text editor. Any text editor like notepad can be used, but for better experience and also industry uses IDE's like Eclipse and Netbeans. These two are available free of cost and you can install them easily on your system. You can see this video tutorial for setting up your development environment.