What is Java EE, and why was it created?

The Java language was introduced to the world in 1996. It consisted of a compiler and a Java virtual machine. Both components are platform-dependent, meaning that you have different versions for Windows, Linux, macOS, and so on. This is called Java Standard Edition (Java SE).

The Java language is unique in that it does not compile to native machine code but, instead, to something called bytecode. This bytecode is platform-independent, meaning it can be transferred to any of the aforementioned platforms.

To execute the bytecode, you would need a Java Virtual Machine (JVM). The JVM translates the intermediate bytecode to machine code, specific to the platform it is executed on.

This principle of compiling to bytecode and being able to execute it on any platform was dubbed Write Once, Run Anywhere (WORA). This has proven to be the distinctive feature that has led to the success of Java in business environments.

Initially, Java was meant to run in browsers, inside so-called applets. These applets added a lot of functionality to the early browsers such as Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Netscape’s Navigator.

Free versions of Java were supplied to several popular platforms, which aided in the rapid success of the language.

The JVM specification could be licensed by third parties, allowing them to build their own implementations of the compiler and the JVM. Several companies have done so, which means that there are now several vendors that offer their own implementation. The most common are (in alphabetical order) as follows:

• Alibabi Dragonwell
• Amazon Coretto
• Azul Zulu
• Bellsoft Liberica
• Eclipse Adoptium Temurin
• J9
• Oracle Oracle JDK and OpenJDK
• Redhat OpenJDK
• SAP SapMachine

But soon, Java moved out of the realm of browsers into the business world. It became obvious that developing business applications required additional functionality that was not part of the language.

Instead of adding this functionality to the language itself, it was decided that it would better be provided by a separate set of APIs. To avoid confusion and distinguish between Java SE and these new APIs, they were called Java Enterprise Edition (Java EE).

Java EE added features such as transactions, security, scalability, management of components, and concurrency. It allowed you to create dynamic web applications and provided a robust platform for distributed transactions.