What is JavaScript ?

What is JavaScript ? JavaScript is a programming language that was invented in 1995 by Brendan Eich for scripting things in the web browser. It’s majorly used for client-side Dynamic pages. Programs we have a tendency to write in JavaScript are referred to as scripts in conjunction with HTML and CSS, JavaScript is one of all the core technologies of the World Wide web.

JavaScript contains a standard library of objects, such as Array, Date, and Math, and a core set of language elements such as operators, control structures, and statements

JavaScript on the server such as Node.Js is used to act on the custom requests from Js code on the host computer browser.

JavaScript has a distinct comparison over a class based languages. In a class-based programming language usually designed for fast execution and type safety, like Java, in which all objects are divided into classes and instances, subdivided into the class hierarchy, and cannot have properties or methods added dynamically, means it cannot be changed during the code execution. Such tightly coupled object hierarchies make Java programming more complex.

On the other hand JavaScript is a bit slow, a scripting language which follows most of the Java expressions syntax, naming conventions and basic control-flows and in addition it offers simple programming tool to through its easier syntax, specialized built-in functionality, and minimal requirements for object creation, but with some limitations such as it cannot easily access database on hard disk directly, does a task through file operations.

Today there are over 2 billion websites in the world, and javascript is used on 95% of them.

Purpose of JavaScript: What is JavaScript ?

JavaScript permits us to develop interactive web content and is an important part of any web application services. The bulk of websites use JavaScript for client-side page behavior, and every major web browsers have a passionate JavaScript engine to execute it. JavaScript is an Object-Oriented language however, it’s not a class-based Object-oriented language like JAVA, C++, C#, etc. JavaScript could be a prototype-based language.

Easy Set-up:

JavaScript is easy-to-pickup language because JavaScript code can be written by any simple code editor and executed directly into web browsers. Thus, there is no need to download or install any heavy development platforms or software to write and run JavaScript code.

You can simply open your browser, like Chrome, and navigate to Developers Tool and start coding away. To write a “Hello World” program is as simple as:

console.log(“Hello World”);

You can also use IDE or code editor like Visual Studio Code where you can create a file with the file extension .js to write java script. (https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/nodejs/working-with-javascript) Visual Studio Code (VS Code) is more widely used to write code but there are other editors like Atom and Sublime Text which are quite common amongst developers.

Importance of JavaScript:

While JavaScript isn’t the only client-side scripting language on the net, it had been one among the primary and remains the foremost wide used. Js makes responsive style easier. JavaScript has become integral to the net expertise as developers build increased interaction and quality into their applications.

Benefits of JavaScript:

  • Speed: Client-side JavaScript is very fast because it can be run immediately within the client-side browser. Unless outside resources are required, JavaScript is unhindered by network calls to a backend server.
  • Simplicity: JavaScript is relatively simple to learn and implement.
  • Popularity: JavaScript is used everywhere on the web.
  • Interoperability: JavaScript plays nicely with other languages and can be used in a huge variety of applications.
  • Server Load: Being client-side reduces the demand on the website server.
  • Gives the ability to create rich interfaces.

Versions of JavaScript:

  • The Original JavaScript ES1 ES2 ES3 (1997-1999)
  • The First Main Revision ES5 (2009)
  • The Second Revision ES6 (2015)
  • Yearly Additions (2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020)

Pro’s:

  • Large, vibrant ecosystem
  • Large user community (https://hackernoon.com/the-javascript-phenomenon-is-a-mass-psychosis-57adebb09359)
  • Common language between front end and back end.
  • The greatest advantage of having contextual “this”, no longer need to “bind” functions any more.
  • Most modern browsers support Arrow Functions out of the box. Although I will still advice using a transpiler like Bable to polyfill for backward compatibility.

Con’s:

  • Large, vibrant ecosystem is in a constant state of flux; yesterday, it was Angular 1; today, it’s Angular 2+ and React; tomorrow, it may be Vue or something else (who knows); lots of confusion and uncertainty
  • Poorly designed language with a ton of WATs and WTFs
  • Growing into enormous complexity (ES8.0’s language spec is a whopping 885 pages; expect more in ES9.0, ES10.0, etc.)
  • Primarily for web programming, with some traction in server side, mobile, and desktop; largely irrelevant everywhere else
  • Unsuitable for large-scale software engineering where maintainability and reliability are crucial
  • Unsuitable for high-performance software (like graphics, video games, numerical computing, high-volume distributed concurrent systems, etc.)

What is JavaScript ?

What is JavaScript ? What is JavaScript ? What is JavaScript ? What is JavaScript ?