JavaScript and a Brief History of Computer Programming

JavaScript "is the Netscape-developed object scripting language used in millions of web pages and server applications worldwide" (Mozilla). JavaScript has been around since 1995, and was developed in 10 days by Brendan Eich, starting out as Mocha. Trying to appeal to multiple levels of experience with programming, JavaScript “was to be a light, friendly version of C with simpler semantics” (Charles Severance), with the “basic syntax [being] intentionally similar to both Java and C++ to reduce the number of new concepts required to learn the language” (Mozilla). JavaScript is a very common language to find on web based platforms, each web browser has interpreters that help it understand JavaScript, since “its association with the browser makes it one of the most popular programming languages in the world” (Douglas Crockford 2).

JavaScript's endurance is only possible thanks to some “improvements [during the late 1990s] through the [ECMA] standards process” (Severance) which helped it be able to endure to the early 2000s, and with some further improvements “it became fast enough and good enough in 2004 and 2005 to beget the Web 2.0 revolution” (Severance). It has been able to grow and change with the development of web browser technologies, without changing its syntax. This allows those who know the language to continue to use JavaScript without huge amounts of time spend on relearning it and instead being able to explore the new possibilities offered by the new technologies present in web development. Today, JavaScript is present in very well known web applications and its language allows “highly interactive user interface functionality [to be] moved into the browser to create increasingly rich desktop-like experiences in applications such as Google Mail and Google Maps” (Severance).

MATERIALS

Creating apps, games and other web applications require two things: knowing a programming language and having a computer. There are several options to choose from when considering a programming language to use for app/game development with the most popular ones being C, C++, C#, JavaScript, Java, PHP and Python.

While I did consider these other languages, I decided to start out with learning some JavaScript due to its relative ease of learning and widespread usage, being “ a small, lightweight language [...] designed for easy embedding in other products and applications, such as web browsers.” (Mozilla) All modern browsers understand JavaScript, and is used in a large amount of web based applications, creating more dynamic web pages and is also used in game development. I wanted to learn JavaScript for the purpose of this project, but the benefits of knowing it for web development make it ideal to learn.

C is another widely used option and was my other main choice of language to use. Syntax from C forms the basis to its cousins C++ and C#, both being more advanced versions of C, while also helping to shape the base syntax of JavaScript. “C has been around for several decades and has won widespread acceptance because it gives programmers maximum control and efficiency” (Marshall Brain), but is also more complicated than JavaScript, being a much more heavyweight language, with many more uses than mostly web applications.

Even though C is apparently very simple to learn, and does form a lot of the syntax of JavaScript, I decided that JavaScript was a more useful language for me to learn. The ability to transfer my learned skills into something I may use in my professional life, instead of just learning for this project and just forgetting it later. The availability of tutorials for JavaScript that integrated with the building of websites at further skill levels also influenced my decision to learn JavaScript.

REFERENCES