From its beginnings as a way to make websites beautiful, JavaScript has morphed into a serious programming language.

JavaScript’s humble beginnings began in 1995, when Brendan Eich, then working at Netscape Communications, created it in just 10 days. JavaScript has come a long way since then, from a tool for making websites beautiful to a serious programming language.

In its early days, JavaScript was considered a visual tool that made websites more interesting and engaging. Languages like Jakarta Server Pages (JSPS, formerly JavaServer Pages) used to do the grunt work of rendering web Pages, while JavaScript was used to create basic interactions, visual enhancements, and animations.

For a long time, the boundaries between HTML, CSS, and JavaScript have been blurred. Front-end development consists mainly of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, forming a “tiered cake” of standard Web technologies.

Standard network technology”Multi-layer cake”(Mozilla Developer Network,CC BY – SA 4.0)

HTML and CSS provide structure, format, and style for content. Once a web page needs to do something more than display static content, that’s where JavaScript comes in. Ecma International developed the JavaScript specification, and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) developed the HTML and CSS specifications.

How did JavaScript gain prominence

There is a long history behind how JavaScript became the most popular programming language. Back in the 1990s, Java was king, and comparisons were inevitable. Many engineers believe that JavaScript is not a good programming language because it lacks support for object-oriented programming. Although it may not have been obvious at the time, JavaScript’s object model and features were already present in its first release.

After JavaScript was hastily released in 1995, Netscape submitted it to the International division of the European Computer Manufacturers Association (ECMA) for standardization. This led to ECMAScript, a JavaScript standard designed to ensure the interoperability of Web pages between different Web browsers. ECMAScript 1 came out in June 1997, helping to standardize JavaScript.

During this time, PHP and JSP have become the popular server-side programming languages of choice. JSP gained prominence as the preferred alternative to the Common Gateway Interface (CGI) because it could embed Java code in HTML. Despite its popularity, developers find it unnatural to embed Java in HTML. In addition, JSPS must go through a time-consuming life cycle for even the simplest text changes on HTML. In today’s microservices world, JSP-oriented pages are considered technical debt.

PHP works like JSP, but the PHP code is handled in a common gateway interface (CGI) executable. Php-based Web applications are easier to deploy than JSPS. In general, PHP is easier to get up and running. Today, PHP and JavaScript are one of the most popular combinations for creating dynamic web sites: PHP as server-side script, JavaScript as client-side script.

With the release of jQuery in 2006, JavaScript has been used more and more. JQuery is a versatile JavaScript library that simplifies cumbersome Document Object Model (DOM) management, event handling, and Ajax.

The release of Node.js in 2009 was a turning point in the evolution of JavaScript. Developers can now write server-side scripts in JavaScript. It was followed by frameworks like backbone. js and AngularJS released in 2010. This led to the concept of full-stack development in a single language.

In 2015, Ecma International released ECMAScript 6 (ES6), which adds important new syntax for writing complex applications, including class declarations. Other new features include iterators, arrow function expressions, let and const keywords, typed arrays, new collections (maps, collections, weakMaps), promises, template characters for strings, and many other cool features. Later versions have continued to add more features to make JavaScript more powerful, streamlined, and reliable.

conclusion

JavaScript has come a long way in the last 20 years. Most browsers are now scrambling to meet compliance, so the latest specifications are coming out faster.

There are plenty of solid JavaScript frameworks to choose from, depending on your project needs, including the most popular React, Angular, vue.js, and more. In the next article in this series, I’ll delve into why JavaScript is so popular.

Via: opensource.com/article/20/…

Author: Nimisha Mukherjee

This article is originally compiled by LCTT and released in Linux China