James Gosling facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
James Gosling
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Gosling in 2008
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James Arthur Gosling
May 19, 1955 |
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| Known for | Java (programming language) Gosling Emacs |
| Children | 2 |
| Awards | Officer of the Order of Canada
IEEE John von Neumann Medal The Economist Innovation Award NAE Foreign Member Fellow Computer History Museum |
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| Thesis | Algebraic Constraints (1983) |
| Doctoral advisor | Bob Sproull and Raj Reddy |
James Arthur Gosling (born May 19, 1955) is a Canadian computer scientist. He is most famous for creating the Java programming language. Java is one of the most popular computer languages in the world. In 2004, he became a member of the National Academy of Engineering. This was for his work on Java and for helping create computer windowing systems.
Contents
Early Life and Education
James Gosling was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. His parents were Joyce Morrison and Dave Gosling. He has roots from England, Wales, Scotland, and Iceland.
High School and Early Work
While attending William Aberhart High School, James was already working with computers. He helped write software to study data from the ISIS 2 satellite. This work was for the physics department at the University of Calgary.
University Studies
He earned his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Calgary. Later, he received his Master of Arts and Ph.D. degrees from Carnegie Mellon University. All his degrees were in computer science. During his Ph.D. studies, he created a version of Emacs called Gosling Emacs (Gosmacs). Before joining Sun Microsystems, he also built a special version of Unix for a powerful 16-way computer system.
Career and Major Contributions
James Gosling joined Sun Microsystems in 1984. He worked there for 26 years. During his time at Sun, he made many important contributions to computer science.
Inventing Java
Gosling is known as the "father" of the Java programming language. He came up with the idea for the Java VM while working on a project. He needed to move software from one type of computer to another. He realized that a "virtual machine" could help programs run on any computer.
He is widely recognized for inventing the Java programming language in 1994. He designed the first version of Java. He also built its first compiler and virtual machine. His idea for Java came from his early university days. He had created a similar "p-code virtual machine" for his professor. This allowed programs to run on different computers. For Java, he applied the same idea: write programs for one virtual machine, and they will work everywhere.
Other Important Work
Gosling also helped create an early Unix windowing system called NeWS. This system allowed users to see and interact with programs using graphics. He also co-wrote a program called "shar." This tool helps bundle multiple files into one for easy sharing.
Life After Sun Microsystems
James Gosling left Sun Microsystems on April 2, 2010. This happened after Oracle Corporation bought Sun. He mentioned reasons like changes in pay and his role. He also felt there were ethical challenges.
New Ventures
In March 2011, Gosling joined Google. Six months later, he moved to a startup company called Liquid Robotics. This company builds robots that explore the ocean. In late 2016, Boeing bought Liquid Robotics. After this, Gosling left Liquid Robotics. In May 2017, he started working at Amazon Web Services as a Distinguished Engineer. He retired in July 2024.
He has also served as an advisor for other companies. These include Lightbend, which works with the Scala language. He was also an independent director at Jelastic and an advisor for Eucalyptus. He is also a board member for DIRTT Environmental Solutions.
Awards and Honors
James Gosling has received many awards for his work.
- 2002: He received The Economist Innovation Award.
- 2002: He was given The Flame Award for lifetime achievement from USENIX.
- 2007: He was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. This is Canada's second-highest honor for civilians.
- 2013: He became a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery.
- 2015: He was awarded the IEEE John von Neumann Medal.
- 2019: He was named a Computer History Museum Fellow. This was for his work on creating the Java programming language.
Books by James Gosling
James Gosling has written or co-written several books about programming. Many of these books are about the Java language.
- Ken Arnold, James Gosling, David Holmes, The Java Programming Language, Fourth Edition, Addison-Wesley Professional, 2005, ISBN: 0-321-34980-6
- James Gosling, Bill Joy, Guy L. Steele Jr., Gilad Bracha, The Java Language Specification, Third Edition, Addison-Wesley Professional, 2005, ISBN: 0-321-24678-0
- Ken Arnold, James Gosling, David Holmes, The Java Programming Language, Third Edition, Addison-Wesley Professional, 2000, ISBN: 0-201-70433-1
- James Gosling, Bill Joy, Guy L. Steele Jr., Gilad Bracha, The Java Language Specification, Second Edition, Addison-Wesley, 2000, ISBN: 0-201-31008-2
- Gregory Bollella (Editor), Benjamin Brosgol, James Gosling, Peter Dibble, Steve Furr, David Hardin, Mark Turnbull, The Real-Time Specification for Java, Addison Wesley Longman, 2000, ISBN: 0-201-70323-8
- Ken Arnold, James Gosling, The Java programming language Second Edition, Addison-Wesley, 1997, ISBN: 0-201-31006-6
- Ken Arnold, James Gosling, The Java programming language, Addison-Wesley, 1996, ISBN: 0-201-63455-4
- James Gosling, Bill Joy, Guy L. Steele Jr., The Java Language Specification, Addison Wesley Publishing Company, 1996, ISBN: 0-201-63451-1
- James Gosling, Frank Yellin, The Java Team, The Java Application Programming Interface, Volume 2: Window Toolkit and Applets, Addison-Wesley, 1996, ISBN: 0-201-63459-7
- James Gosling, Frank Yellin, The Java Team, The Java Application Programming Interface, Volume 1: Core Packages, Addison-Wesley, 1996, ISBN: 0-201-63453-8
- James Gosling, Henry McGilton, The Java language Environment: A white paper, Sun Microsystems, 1996
- James Gosling, David S. H. Rosenthal, Michelle J. Arden, The NeWS Book: An Introduction to the Network/Extensible Window System (Sun Technical Reference Library), Springer, 1989, ISBN: 0-387-96915-2
See also
In Spanish: James Gosling para niños
