JavaScript is a versatile and sophisticated programming language that is supported by a wide variety of web browsers. It is a critical component of web technology, alongside HTML and CSS. While HTML is in charge of structure and CSS is in charge of style, JavaScript is in charge of the interaction of web pages in the browser. No wonder JavaScript tutorial is in such high demand.
The language was constructed in less than two weeks and for a very different reason. It was never intended to become the de facto standard for modern web programming. But today, it is extensively used in different fields.
You can learn about JavaScript by doing a JS tutorial available online. Here we will track the journey of this language and how it became a dominant language in the world of programming.
JavaScript’s History
When public use of the Internet exploded in the 1990s, technological firms competed to provide the most powerful and efficient web browser available. This began the first “browser war,” in which Microsoft (Internet Explorer) and NetScape (NetScape Navigator) battled for supremacy in web browser use share.
Netscape required a lightweight scripting language to facilitate development. As a result, web programming became more accessible, in comparison to previous languages that required more expertise. Brendan Eich, a NetScape employee, was given ten days in 1995 to assist the firm in developing a lightweight scripting language. As a result, Eich developed Mocha, which was called JavaScript later on.
The lesson of this story is that JavaScript was never meant to become the web’s de facto standard language! However, once NetScape was bought by AOL and finally gave over the source for their browser to the Mozilla Foundation, JavaScript gained prominence.
JavaScript has evolved into a critical web technology, supported by the majority of modern web browsers. For anybody interested in pursuing a career as a web developer, familiarity with the language is critical—it has been the most frequently used programming language in Stack Overflow’s Developer Survey for six consecutive years.
Steps that helped javascript to become dominant
1. Normative standardization and Implementation
Following this release, JavaScript was submitted to Ecma International, an organization founded in 1961 with the mission of standardizing communication and information systems, with the goal of developing a standard specification that could be implemented by all other browsers. This was a critical milestone in the language’s development, allowing for a broader audience, giving implementors a voice in the language’s maturation, and reining in Implementation—early on, there was concern that other implementations might wander too far and cause fragmentation.
Officially known as ECMAScript—JavaScript could not be used because Oracle Corporation owns the trademark—the standard (ECMA-262) was approved in 1997. In 1999, ECMAScript 3, the foundation for current JavaScript, was released.
Almost immediately following the publication of version 3, work on ECMAScript 4 began, ushering in a fractious and confrontational time for JavaScript. Numerous new features were planned, but by 2003, enthusiasm had waned and work on version 4 had ceased.
Yahoo joined the committee after a number of features were agreed, sending JavaScript developer Doug Crockford as their representative. Crockford raised several issues about the proposed standards, which were backed by Microsoft. This resulted in Microsoft refusing to recognize any element of the ECMAScript 4 standard, threatening legal action in the process, thereby killing it.
Crockford eventually offered ECMAScript 3.1 as a simpler standard. The JavaScript community followed likewise, refocusing on the 3.1 standard and abandoning development on ECMAScript 4 after eight years.
ECMAScript 3.1 was renamed ECMAScript 5—to prevent confusion, since version 4 had already been adopted in different forms—and quickly became the most supported version of JavaScript, with Implementation in:
- Firefox 4
- Chrome 16
- Internet Explorer 10
- Opera 12.10
- Safari 6.
2. AJAX
Earlier websites were exclusively comprised of whole HTML pages. This meant that each action taken by the user required a complete refresh of the content, which meant that the HTML for the entire page had to be reloaded from the server, even if only a small modification was made.
Inefficient from a user experience aspect, Microsoft introduced the iframe element, or inline frame, in Internet Explorer in 1996 to enable asynchronous content implementation. An iframe is a container for an HTML document contained within another HTML document. Microsoft began utilizing its iframe technology in 1999 to dynamically update news headlines and financial quotations on Internet Explorer’s default page.
Additionally, Microsoft’s Outlook Web App engineers created the first XMLHTTP script, which was eventually adopted by Firefox, Opera and Safari as the XMLHttpRequest JavaScript object.
In summary, this enabled HTTP queries, a protocol in which a browser makes an information request to a server and receives a response from the server, to be done in the background without requiring a complete reload of an already rendered HTML page.
While this technology remained mostly unutilized, it began to find more Implementation through online apps such as Outlook Web App (2000), Kayak.com’s public beta release in 2004 and Gmail (2004).
This culminated in 2005 with the publication of Jesse James Garret’s paper “AJAX: A New Approach to Web Applications.” Garret invented the name AJAX (asynchronous JavaScript and XML) to characterize these technologies and detailed ways for developing web applications that mainly rely on JavaScript and allow data to be loaded in the background without requiring a full page reload.
3. Early Extenders
The expanded possibilities provided by AJAX resulted in a resurgence of interest in JavaScript. It resulted in the establishment of numerous prominent open-source frameworks and libraries to aid in the facilitation and acceleration of the development of these types of online applications. Few examples among these are:
- Prototype
- MooTools
- Dojo
- jQuery
What is a framework? A framework is a reusable piece of software that provides a standardized method for developing and deploying applications. Thus, while using a framework, the framework determines the application’s control flow, not the developer (inversion of control).
On the other hand, a library is nothing more than a collection of linked reusable resources—that is, functions that assist the developer in doing a certain activity, such as sending an AJAX request—leaving the developer in charge.
4. MooTools
My Object-Oriented Tools, or “MooTools,” was launched in 2006, taking inspiration from base2, a library meant to “iron out” discrepancies across JavaScript implementations, and Prototype, a framework for extending many of JavaScript’s native objects.
MooTools was developed by Valerio Proietti with the goal of providing increased control over the DOM and extending JavaScript’s basic capabilities while allowing for flexible, reusable code and cross-browser compatibility. While jQuery’s major focus was on the DOM, MooTools was created to extend the language by strengthening:
- Array
- Element
- Function
- Number
- String objects
Conclusion
From humble beginnings, JavaScript introduced a new way for consumers to engage with web pages. Since its standardization and cross-browser Implementation, the language’s popularity has soared. The web is the most widely used platform for application development, and JavaScript is now a critical component of it.
Whether employed as a utility language for triggering a pop-up window or navigation menu or as the primary language for rendering a single page application, JavaScript is a must-have in a developer’s technological stack. While a big portion of that popularity stems from the fact that it is a utility language, its current rise is mostly due to the fact that its capabilities have expanded beyond that purpose.
JavaScript is being embraced by an increasing number of developers as a solution to an increasing number of issues, resulting in the language’s popularity and applicability growing.
