JavaScript, often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that conforms to the ECMAScript specification. JavaScript is high-level, often just-in-time compiled, and multi-paradigm. It has curly-bracket syntax, dynamic typing, prototype-based object-orientation, and first-class functions.
What is JavaScript?
Javascript is a High Level, Object Oriented, Multi Paradigm Programming Language.
JavaScript was initially created to “make web pages alive”.
The programs in this language are called scripts. They can be written right in a web page’s HTML and run automatically as the page loads.
Scripts are provided and executed as plain text. They don’t need special preparation or compilation to run.
JavaScript is very different from another language called Java, but was named Javascript because at the time(in 1995) Java was a very popular language
Today JavaScript is an independent language ECMAScript, and now it has no relation to Java at all.
JavaScript can execute not only in the browser, but also on the server, or actually on any device that has a special program called the JavaScript engine.
The browser has an embedded engine sometimes called a “JavaScript virtual machine”.
Different engines have different “codenames”. For example:
What Does an Javascript Engine do?
In-browser JavaScript capabilities
What Javascript Can’t Do:
Figure to describe Javascripts capabilities
Such limits do not exist if JavaScript is used outside of the browser, for example on a server. Modern browsers also allow plugin/extensions which may ask for extended permissions.
What makes JavaScript unique?