Javascript

JavaScript Overview

Javascript is a high-level, dynamically typed and interpreted, programming language that was created in May of 1995 by Netscape employee Brendan Eich.

The language was famously created in only 10 days and adopted the name Javascript as a marketing play, playing off the hugly popular Java programming language. Although ironically the two languages are very different.

Javascript was built with the sole purpose of making websites more responsive and dynamic. Because it’s able to respond to user interactions and access and manipulate the document object model (DOM), Javascript allows web developers to make more dynamic websites.

In 1996 the early version of Javascript was adopted into a formal language specification called ECMAScript, of which Javascript was the most well known implementation. By specifying the language formally, all browsers could support languages implementing ECMAScript. So Technically Javascript is based off the ECMAScript specification.

How JavaScript Runs

Today Javascript is a staple, used on just about every modern website. It’s become one of the three core web development technologies along-side HTML and CSS.

Because javascript is a core web development technology and most web developers know it, Javascript has been stretched beyond it’s original purpose. Now-a-day’s there are thousands of javascript frameworks and it’s even used as a server-side language.

Javascript utilizes a garbage collector and it’s syntax is loosly based on C/C++.

Choosing an IDE

Many developers choose to write Javascript using a basic text editor, generally Javascript will be written in the same enviornment as the HTML and front end technologies that it interacts with. In many cases javascript will be written directly inside of an HTML file, but can also be palced in it’s own separate Javascript file and imported into HTML.