History and RoadmapChange LogRoadmap History of this Database Engine Why Java Supporters Change LogThe up-to-date change log is available at http://www.h2database.com/html/changelog.html RoadmapThe current roadmap is available at http://www.h2database.com/html/roadmap.html History of this Database EngineThe development of H2 was started in May 2004, but it was first published on December 14th 2005. The main author of H2, Thomas Mueller, is also the original developer of Hypersonic SQL. In 2001, he joined PointBase Inc. where he wrote PointBase Micro, a commercial Java SQL database. At that point, he had to discontinue Hypersonic SQL. The HSQLDB Group was formed to continued to work on the Hypersonic SQL codebase. The name H2 stands for Hypersonic 2, however H2 does not share code with Hypersonic SQL or HSQLDB. H2 is built from scratch. Why JavaThe main reasons to use a Java database are:
Some think Java is too slow for low level operations, but this is no longer true. Garbage collection for example is now faster than manual memory management. Developing Java code is faster than developing C or C++ code. When using Java, most time can be spent on improving the algorithms instead of porting the code to different platforms or doing memory management. Features such as Unicode and network libraries are already built-in. In Java, writing secure code is easier because buffer overflows can not occur. Features such as reflection can be used for randomized testing. Java is future proof: a lot of companies support Java. Java is now open source. To increase the portability and ease of use, this software depends on very few libraries. Features that are not available in open source Java implementations (such as Swing) are not used, or only used for optional features. SupportersMany thanks for those who reported bugs, gave valuable feedback, spread the word, and translated this project. Also many thanks to the donors:
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