--- title: How a Junior Developer Created One of Java's Most Widely... description: A first-person account from the junior Sun Microsystems developer who, in 1997, was tasked with formalizing the Java Servlet specification and building its... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/how-a-junior-developer-created-one-of-java-s-most-widely-used-server-technologies-la5txpnro twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: How a Junior Developer Created One of Java's Most Widely Used Server Technologies | daily.dev og:description: A first-person account from the junior Sun Microsystems developer who, in 1997, was tasked with formalizing the Java Servlet specification and building its... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/how-a-junior-developer-created-one-of-java-s-most-widely-used-server-technologies-la5txpnro og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/la5TXpnRO.png og:image:alt: How a Junior Developer Created One of Java's Most Widely Used Server Technologies og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # How a Junior Developer Created One of Java's Most Widely Used Server Technologies **[Honeypot](https://daily.dev/sources/honeypot)** · 4 min read · 11 upvotes · 1 comments ## Summary A first-person account from the junior Sun Microsystems developer who, in 1997, was tasked with formalizing the Java Servlet specification and building its reference implementation. Working with industry players from IBM, BEA, and the open source community, he developed what was internally called 'Tomcat' — initially named JSWDK externally. Collaborating with O'Reilly author Jason Hunter for testing, he shipped the early versions of what became Apache Tomcat. The collaborative, community-driven process he used also inadvertently served as a testbed for what would later become the Java Community Process (JCP). ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### Where did the name Tomcat for the Java servlet container originally come from? Tomcat began as the internal directory name used by the Sun engineer developing the reference implementation of the servlet specification. Publicly, the project was released under the clunky name JSWDK (Java Servlet Web Development Kit), but internally it was always called Tomcat, a name that later stuck as the project evolved into the open source Apache Tomcat server. _Developers curious how everyday tool names originated can find more engineering history on daily.dev._ ### Why wasn't Sun's Java Web Server used as the reference implementation for the servlet specification? Sun's Java Web Server was rejected as the servlet spec's reference implementation because it was a closed-source commercial product that had to be purchased, so developers could not see how it actually implemented the spec's behaviors. The servlet API's creator argued a reference implementation needed visible source code alongside the spec and Javadoc, which led to building JSWDK/Tomcat as an open alternative instead. _Anyone weighing open versus closed reference implementations for a spec can explore similar tradeoffs on daily.dev._ ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@starfallcodes** · 0 upvotes > what is it? ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [The good ol’ days of building Java](https://daily.dev/posts/the-good-ol-days-of-building-java-bhtxfwlhl) · Stack Overflow Blog · 7 upvotes · 0 comments - [The Official Documentary - Inside.java](https://daily.dev/posts/the-official-documentary---inside-java-5fiaicntd) · Inside Java · 3 upvotes · 0 comments - [The Latest in OpenJDK and JCP Expert Group: Insights with Simon Ritter](https://daily.dev/posts/the-latest-in-openjdk-and-jcp-expert-group-insights-with-simon-ritter-z80yktd7j) · InfoQ · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#open-source](https://daily.dev/tags/open-source), [#java](https://daily.dev/tags/java) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/how-a-junior-developer-created-one-of-java-s-most-widely-used-server-technologies-la5txpnro) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} 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