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Java is a programming language loosely related to C++. Java originated in a project to produce a software development environment for small distributed embedded systems. Programs needed to be small, fast, “safe” and portable. These needs led to a design that is rather different from standard practice. In particular, the form of compiled programs is machine independent bytecodes. But we needed to manipulate programs in ways usually associated with higher level, more abstract intermediate representations. This lets us build systems that are safer, less fragile, more portable, and yet show little performance penalty while still being simple.
James Gosling (Wed,) studied this question.