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Version 6 is the product version, while 1.6. 0 is the developer version. The number 6 is used to reflect the evolving level of maturity, stability, scalability and security of Java SE.
JDK is the Java Development Kit, JRE is the Java Runtime Environment, Java SE is the standard edition, and so on.
The Java Development Kit (JDK) is part of the Java SE Product, there are other parts as well, but you can treat them as the same thing for development purposes.
JDK(Java Development Kit) is used to develop Java applications. JDK also contains numerous development tools like compilers, debuggers, etc. JRE(Java Runtime Environment) is the implementation of JVM(Java Virtual Machine) and it is specially designed to execute Java programs.
SE defines a set of capabilities and functionalities; there are more complex editions (Enterprise Edition – EE) and simpler ones (Micro Edition – ME – for mobile environments).
The JDK includes the compiler and other tools needed to develop Java applications; JRE does not. So, to run a Java application someone else provides, you need JRE; to develop a Java application, you need JDK.
Edited: As Chris Marasti-Georg pointed out in a comment, you can find out lots of information at Sun's Java web site, and in particular from the Java SE section, (2nd option, Java SE Development Kit (JDK) 6 Update 10).
Edited 2011-04-06:
The world turns, and Java is now managed by Oracle, which bought Sun. Later this year, the sun.com domain is supposed to go dark. The new page (based on a redirect) is this Java page at the Oracle Tech Network. (See also java.com.)
Edited 2013-01-11: And the world keeps on turning (2012-12-21 notwithstanding), and lo and behold, JRE 6 is about to reach its end of support. Oracle says no more public updates to Java 6 after February 2013.
Within a given version of Java, this answer remains valid. JDK is the Java Development Kit, JRE is the Java Runtime Environment, Java SE is the standard edition, and so on. But the version 6 (1.6) is becoming antiquated.
Edited 2015-04-29: And with another couple of revolutions around the sun, the time has come for the end of support for Java SE 7, too. In April 2015, Oracle affirmed that it was no longer providing public updates to Java SE 7. The tentative end of public updates for Java SE 8 is March 2017, but that end date is subject to change (later, not earlier).
This might help someone:
I am installing the latest Java on my system for development, and currently it's Java SE 7. Now, let's dive into this "madness", as you put it...
All of these are the same (when developers are talking about Java for development):
Starting with Java v1.5:
And we can assume this will remain for future versions.
Next, for developers, download JDK, not JRE.
JDK will contain JRE. If you need JDK and JRE, get JDK. Both will be installed from the single JDK install, as you will see below.
As someone above mentioned:
Here's the step by step links I followed (one step leads to the next, this is all for a single download) to download Java for development (JDK):
Keep in mind the above links are for reference purposes only, to show you the step by step method of what it takes to download the JDK.
And install with default settings to:
Remember from above that JDK contains JRE, which makes sense if you know what they both are. Again, see above.
After your install, double check “C:\Program Files\Java” to see both these folders. Now you know what they are and why they are there.
I know I wrote this for newbies, but I enjoy knowing things in full detail, so I hope this helps.
When you type "java -version", you see three version numbers - the java version (on mine, that's "1.6.0_07"), the Java SE Runtime Environment version ("build 1.6.0_07-b06"), and the HotSpot version (on mine, that's "build 10.0-b23, mixed mode"). I suspect the "11.0" you are seeing is the HotSpot version.
Update: HotSpot is (or used to be, now they seem to use it to mean the whole VM) the just-in-time compiler that is built in to the Java Virtual Machine. God only knows why Sun gives it a separate version number.
Java is a platform. It consists of two products - the software development kit, and the runtime environment.
When Java was first released, it was apparently just called Java. If you were a developer, you also knew the version, which was a normal "1.0" and later a "1.1". The two products that were part of the platform were also given names:
Apparently the changes in version 1.2 so significant that they started calling the platform as Java 2.
The default "distribution" of the platform was given the moniker "standard" to contrast it with its siblings. So you had three platforms:
The JDK was officially renamed to "Java 2 Software Development Kit".
When version 1.5 came out, the suits decided that they needed to "rebrand" the product. So the Java platform got two versions - the product version "5" and the developer version "1.5" (Yes, the rule is explicitly mentioned -- "drop the '1.'). However, the "2" was retained in the name. So now the platform is officially called "Java 2 Platform Standard Edition 5.0 (J2SE 5.0)".
When version 1.6 come out, someone realized that having two numbers in the name was weird. So they decide to completely drop the 2 (and the ".0" suffix), and we end up with the "Java Platform, Standard Edition 6 (Java SE 6)" containing the "Java SE Development Kit 6 (JDK 6)" and the "Java SE Runtime Environment 6 (JRE 6)".
Version 1.7 did not do anything stupid. If I had to guess, the next big change would be dropping the "SE", so that the cycle completes and the JDK again gets to be called the "Java Development Kit".
For simplicity, a bunch of trademark signs were omitted. So assume Java™, JDK™ and JRE™.
SO seems to have trouble rendering nested lists.
Just drop the "1." from versions printed by javac -version and java -version and you're good to go.
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