JavaScript is a browser scripting language supported by all major browsers. It has been in wide spread use since the release of the Netscape Navigator 2.0 web browser in December 1995, which was when JavaScript was officially launched.
Its release coincided with Netscape building support for sun micro system’s Java Programming language, which led to the theory that Netscape named JavaScript to try to cash in on the Java brand, which at that time was a hugely popular programming language. Although the two languages share a similar name they have very little similarity between them and should never be confused.
JavaScript is primarily used as a front end scripting language for web browsers, and for web design it is generally used to add functionality and dynamic interfaces into standard HTML CSS web pages. Although this is not the only use for JavaScript, it is the most common and is what we will be covering in this series.
JavaScript is an implementation of the ECMAScript language, and can be categorized as a prototype based object-orientated language. The syntax of JavaScript can clearly be seen as being influenced by the C programming languages, so therefore uses syntax which is common across many modern scripting languages. The syntax used is so familiar that the same script can sometimes be interchangeable with little editing from language to language. For instance the same “if” statement or “while” loop could be pasted from JavaScript to PHP, then to ActionScript, with very little editing.
JavaScript became very popular after its launch and enabled web designers a much greater dynamic freedom when creating interactive user interfaces. However, after JavaScript’s initial popularity its reputation started to falter; many believe because professional programmers disliked how popular and accessible it was to “amateurs”. JavaScript did come back fighting, however, with the advent of AJAX – bringing JavaScript right back into the spotlight, it proved JavaScript to be a truly versatile language.
Within this series we will look at the basics of JavaScript and how to get started using it for web design. We will look at creating your first JavaScript program which is not just the standard “hello world”.
Tomorrows post will be JavaScript 101: Getting Started
