What Is JavaScript?

At the onset of the information revolution in the early to mid-nineties, Netscape Communications was hard at work developing a language called Live Script. Live Script was to be used in its Internet browser implementation. It was also to be an extension of HTML and an alternative to CGI scripting.

With Java being a newcomer to the technology scene, Netscape envisioned the huge potential for Java and shared Sun Microsystem's vision of things to come. Netscape began to closely work with Sun Microsystems to develop a scripting language that would work with Java but be an independent language in itself. LiveScript soon became JavaScript as we know it today.

Netscape realized early on the importance for logic to be served up not only on the server side but also on the client side. This means that the browser client is the front end and the server is the back end as we know it today in a client/server architecture. Allowing for dynamic functionality in the front end empowers the client browser and enables its relationship to be that of a true client/server system. This means that events such as data validation and event handling can occur on the client, without a round-trip back to the server for code; this reduces network traffic, making your applications work faster and freeing up I/O on the server.

Today JavaScript is renown to be the glue that holds together the many pieces of divergent applications. It is easy to learn and has drawn support from some of the industry's major vendors , including Apple, Borland, Informix, HP, Sybase, Oracle, and, of course, IBM/Lotus. JavaScript has been adopted by the ECMA and has quickly become one of the de facto languages for Web development.