Javascript
JavaScript is a popular scripting language which is the preferred tool used for client-side web development. It is dynamic, weakly typed and prototype-based and has gained a reputation of being language with first-class functions. As of now, “JavaScript” is an implementation of the ECMA Script standard.
Initially JavaScript was influenced by several languages and was at first designed to have a similar look to Java, but the intention was to make it simpler for non-programmers to work with. As a result the language is known not only for its use in websites (as client-side JavaScript), but is also used to enable scripting access to objects embedded in other applications.
A misconception that often arises out of the name, JavaScript is predominantly unrelated to the Java programming language; though both have owe their origins to the C syntax. The language was actually named LiveScript, and then the name was changed in a co-marketing deal between Netscape and Sun in exchange for Netscape bundling Sun’s Java runtime with their browser, which was dominating the market back at the time. The main design principles that define JavaScript are actually grown from the Self programming language.
“JavaScript” is a trademark of Sun Microsystems. It was at first used under license for technology evolved and used by Netscape Communications and present parties such as the Mozilla Foundation. What makes JavaScript stand apart from almost every other language is its preference to prototypes instead of classes, and its use of associative arrays as fundamental building blocks.
Another advantage that JavaScript brings into picture is that it can respond to user actions quickly, making an application feel more responsive. This is because JavaScript runs on the client rather than the server. Not only that, JavaScript code can detect user actions which HTML by itself can’t (such as individual keystrokes). Quiet a few applications (such as Gmail) have tried to take advantage of this in the sense that much of the user-interface logic is written in JavaScript, and JavaScript discloses requests for data (such as the content of an e-mail message) to the server. The wider trend of Ajax programming similarly seeks to exploit JavaScript’s strengths.
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