A Brief History of JavaScript
By Stephen Bucaro
Javascript was invented by Netscape in 1977. At first it was called "LiveScript"
but the previous year Netscape had released a programming language called
"Java" that could be used to embed small applications, called "applets" into webpages.
Java could bring boring static webpages to life and its popularity exploded.
As a marketing ploy to play off the success of Java, Netscape renamed LiveScript
to JavaScript. The confusion between Java and JavaScript to neophyte
programmers persists to this day.
Netscape had released its Navigator Web browser in October 1994, and it
had close to 100% of the market share. At first Microsoft ignored the Internet,
primarily because the Internet was a 32-bit system while their Windows operating
system was 16-bits. But when Windows 95 came out, a "simulated" 32-bit
operating system, Microsoft released Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer was
not totally compatible with Netscape's Navigator, and it used VBScript rather
than JavaScript.
Sun Microsystems and Netscape combined in April 1995. With the popularity
of Java, Microsoft licensed Java and JavaScript from Sun Microsystems in 1996
and immediately began modifying the code so that it would have greater
functionality on Internet Explorer. However, It was Sun's intention that programs
written in Java or JavaScript should run the same anywhere, so in 1997 Sun sued
Microsoft releasing noncompliant Java products and corrupting the standard.
The lawsuit resulted in Microsoft losing the rights to JavaScript, but by that
time they had already created their own version, compatible with JavaScript,
but with the greater functionality on Internet Explorer that Microsoft desired,
and named it JScript.
With the incompatibility between JavaScript and JScript, web developers and
the Web using public were getting very frustrated. With Microsoft having the
dominant operating system, and with Internet Explorer pre-installed, Navigator
began loosing market share.
In November 1996, Sun Microsystems submitted JavaScript to the non-profit
International Standards Organization ECMA. To help avoid confusion, ECMA
renamed JavaScript to ECMAScript and in June 1997 published the ECMA-262
specification. Since then ECMA has released several updates to the standard,
the latest being ECMAScript version 6 released June 2015.
Today, when we say "JavaScript" we're referring to ECMAScript. Problems with
JavaScript are no longer related to code incompatibility, but to device incompatibility.
With the Internet being accessed by a multitude of different devices developed
by different manufacturers, there is a great incompatibility in which parts of
the standard a particular device is capable of executing.
In an environment of rapid technology change, it's best to test your JavaScript
code on the specific browsers and devices on which you plan its operation.
More Java Script Code:
• JavaScript Math Object
• The for Loop
• A Brief History of JavaScript
• Java Script Math.tan Method
• Convert a Number to a String
• Java Script Number Object
• The switch / case Structure
• Compare Two Strings
• Interactively Set Webpage Colors
• Access Web Page Elements With getElementById
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