---
title: "Which came first, Java or Python?"
description: "Java vs Python: Python came first, by 4 years — 1991 against 1995. What happened in each case, and why the dates are often given differently."
url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/java-vs-python/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, Java or Python?

**Which came first, Java or Python?: Python**

1991 — 4 years before Java

Python came first, by 4 years. Guido van Rossum released version 0.9.0 publicly.

## Side by side

|  | Java | Python |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 1995 | 1991 |
| Date | 1995-05-23 | 1991-02-20 |
| Category | technology | technology |
| What happened | Sun Microsystems announced Java publicly. | Guido van Rossum released version 0.9.0 publicly. |

## Java

Java was announced in May 1995, having started in 1991 as a project called Oak aimed at interactive television — a market that did not exist yet. Its promise was "write once, run anywhere", achieved by compiling to bytecode for a virtual machine rather than to a specific processor. JavaScript arrived seven months later and was named after it purely as a marketing decision; the two languages are unrelated.

## Python

Python was started as a hobby project over Christmas 1989 and first released publicly in February 1991 — four years before Java, JavaScript, PHP and Ruby, all of which arrived in 1995. Most people assume it is much newer because its popularity arrived twenty years after it did. It is named after Monty Python, not the snake.

## Common questions

### Which came first, Java or Python?

Python, by 4 years — 1991 against 1995.

### When did Java start?

1995. Sun Microsystems announced Java publicly.

### When did Python start?

1991. Guido van Rossum released version 0.9.0 publicly.

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## Sources

- Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation (https://www.wikidata.org/) [CC0 1.0]