--- title: James Gosling, Creator of Java | daily.dev description: A podcast interview with James Gosling, creator of Java, covering the origin of the Java name (it was the fourth name on a list that passed trademark checks),... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/james-gosling-creator-of-java-dortnb2tv twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: James Gosling, Creator of Java | daily.dev og:description: A podcast interview with James Gosling, creator of Java, covering the origin of the Java name (it was the fourth name on a list that passed trademark checks),... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/james-gosling-creator-of-java-dortnb2tv og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/dORtNB2TV.png og:image:alt: James Gosling, Creator of Java 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. # James Gosling, Creator of Java **[Telusko](https://daily.dev/sources/telusko)** · 23 min read · 3 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A podcast interview with James Gosling, creator of Java, covering the origin of the Java name (it was the fourth name on a list that passed trademark checks), his early career writing satellite software in assembly and Fortran, his skepticism toward AI coding tools (finding them annoying and harmful to code quality), Java's backward compatibility challenges with features like generics, lambdas, and Project Valhalla, and his preference for NetBeans as an IDE. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### Why is Java's IDE NetBeans considered fully open source compared to other Java IDEs? NetBeans is fully open source under an Apache license and is part of the Apache Software Foundation, unlike some competing Java IDEs that have proprietary components. James Gosling, Java's creator, named it as his favorite IDE and still uses it, citing its GUI-building tools and JavaFX integration for creating slick user interfaces. _Java developers comparing IDE options can find ongoing tooling discussions like this on daily.dev._ ### Why did Sun Microsystems change the name of the Java programming language from Oak? Sun's lawyers found that the name Oak was already used by other existing programming languages and would have violated trademark law, so the roughly 15-person team held a meeting where people yelled out candidate names on a whiteboard, ranked them, and handed the list to lawyers to check one by one. Java was the fourth name on the list to pass the trademark check. _Developers curious about the origins of the languages they use daily can explore more stories like this on daily.dev._ ### What does James Gosling think about using AI coding tools for professional software development? James Gosling, the creator of Java, says he finds AI coding tools mostly annoying because the code they generate is often low quality and hard to evolve, test, or maintain. He argues coding was never software engineering's hardest problem; testing is, and AI tools make that harder while only slightly easing the easier, more enjoyable parts of coding, making them unsuitable for large-scale systems like those run by FedEx or Uber. _Developers weighing whether to trust AI coding tools in production can track expert opinions like this on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [The Java Story: A Film About All of Us](https://daily.dev/posts/the-java-story-a-film-about-all-of-us-bypyskrfu) · Foojay.io · 10 upvotes · 0 comments - [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 - [java sucks](https://daily.dev/posts/java-sucks-crkmaohix) · Lobsters · 10 upvotes · 12 comments --- Tags: [#java](https://daily.dev/tags/java), [#ai-coding](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-coding) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/james-gosling-creator-of-java-dortnb2tv) ```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"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"James Gosling, Creator of Java","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/james-gosling-creator-of-java-dortnb2tv","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/james-gosling-creator-of-java-dortnb2tv"},"datePublished":"2026-08-04T15:39:04.277Z","dateModified":"2026-09-14T08:31:36.272Z","description":"A podcast interview with James Gosling, creator of Java, covering the origin of the Java name (it was the fourth name on a list that passed trademark checks),...","image":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/LxhZhOOYKTM/sddefault.jpg","thumbnailUrl":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/LxhZhOOYKTM/sddefault.jpg","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Telusko","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Telusko","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--xVEBUipN--/f_auto/v1728072944/logos/telusko","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/telusko"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/james-gosling-creator-of-java-dortnb2tv","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":3},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"java,ai-coding","timeRequired":"PT23M","video":{"@type":"VideoObject","name":"James Gosling, Creator of Java","description":"A podcast interview with James Gosling, creator of Java, covering the origin of the Java name (it was the fourth name on a list that passed trademark checks),...","thumbnailUrl":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/LxhZhOOYKTM/sddefault.jpg","uploadDate":"2026-08-04T15:39:04.277Z","duration":"PT23M","url":"https://api.daily.dev/r/dORtNB2TV","embedUrl":"https://www.youtube.com/embed/LxhZhOOYKTM"}} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Telusko","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/telusko"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"James Gosling, Creator of Java"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/james-gosling-creator-of-java-dortnb2tv#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"Why is Java's IDE NetBeans considered fully open source compared to other Java IDEs?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"NetBeans is fully open source under an Apache license and is part of the Apache Software Foundation, unlike some competing Java IDEs that have proprietary components. 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