It's possible that every page on your site uses JavaScript.
You already use JavaScript when you use Google Analytics, track events, or see show ads.
But you can (and should) use it in more ways to give your people great experiences. You need to know what JavaScript is and how to use it before you can do that.
What does JavaScript do?
JavaScript, or JS, is a programming language used to add dynamic and interactive features to websites and apps.
It's one of a kind because it can run in your computer as well as on a server.
JavaScript is one of the most popular computer languages on the internet. The other two are HTML and CSS.
As of March 2023, 98.4% of all websites use JavaScript.
The parts of most websites and online apps that people see are made up of JavaScript, CSS, and HTML.
These programming languages are like the parts of a house:
HTML is what the house is built on. The layout, structure, and material of a website are all set by it.
CSS is the style of the inside. It gives you style, fonts, colors, effects, and other things that you can see.
JavaScript is like the wiring and plumbing. JS makes the page move and respond to different inputs. JavaScript is used to make many things on websites, like pop-ups, animations, drop-down menus, video and social media embeds, and more.
Websites would be mostly static and dull without JavaScript.
JavaScript adds actions and ways to engage. It does a lot more, though.
History of JavaScript
Brendan Eich made JavaScript in 1995 while he was working for Netscape.
It was Netscape's goal to make the early forms of the World Wide Web more dynamic by adding a scripting language.
Developers quickly became fans of JavaScript when they saw how it could make websites more dynamic and interactive.
Netscape sent JavaScript to the European Computer Manufacturers Association (ECMA International) in 1996. ECMA International is a group that wants to make the use of computers more consistent.
Because of this, the ECMAScript standard was made, which contains the official rules for JavaScript.
As it gets more popular, more tools and frameworks, JS engines like V8 (which runs Chrome), and server-side environments have been made possible.
Even though they have the same name, JavaScript and Java are not at all the same.
Delve into the fundamentals of JavaScript and its applications in our latest blog. Need expert guidance? Explore our JavaScript Assignment Help for a seamless coding experience.
Between Libraries and Frameworks
Libraries are groups of pre-written code that can be used to make common JavaScript jobs easy to do.
Developers can work faster when they don't have to write every bit of code themselves.
Frameworks are groups of tools.
Library books are like tools. And frames as toolboxes that are fully stocked.
A tool can give you code for one part of your website, but a framework can give you all the code you need to build the whole thing.
jQuery and React are two well-known JavaScript tools. Vue.js, Node.js, and Angular are all common JavaScript libraries.
Why do people use JavaScript?
JavaScript is used to make websites that change on the fly, games, web servers, back-end systems, and more.
Here are some of the most popular ways that JavaScript is used.
Developing the web
Most of the time, JavaScript is used to make websites that change and interact with visitors.
JS is used by developers to make websites more interactive by adding things like search bars, animations, pop-up windows, buttons, music and video, chat widgets, and more.
With JS, you can also make changes to a page in real time without having to restart it.
JavaScript is often used to add this feature to websites that show news tickers, stock or cryptocurrency prices, or real-time information on what products are available.
Many popular websites, like Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Wikipedia, are built almost entirely on JavaScript. This includes the front end (the side that people see) of these sites.
Games and apps that run on the web
Most games and apps on the internet are made with JavaScript.
JS lets people play games and run apps without having to download any extra software because it works in the browser itself.
Also, simple tasks and functions are done fast because JavaScript is turned into machine code as it is run (this is called "just-in-time compilation").
This leads to a lot of dynamic and involved use.
Compiling code ahead of time is used by languages like C and C++. In other words, the language is turned into easier machine code before it is run.
Ahead-of-time assembly can take longer, especially for functions and processes that aren't very complicated.
Developers can use JavaScript to make a wide range of games, from easy arcade games to complex multiplayer games.
JavaScript is also used by chatbots like ChatGPT, picture editors, project management tools, and calculators that let you interact with the app.
JS makes it possible for even real-time chat apps like Google Meet, Zoom, and Slack to work in a browser.
Programming on the server side
It is the code that runs on a web server to handle requests from clients, like web browsers, and send back answers.
This lets developers make web apps that run quickly and can be scaled up or down, connect to databases, create application programming interfaces (APIs), and make real-time contact easier.
For example, server-side code makes it possible for pages to change, like Facebook's newsfeed.
It would be very inefficient and take millions of pages if every post, story, and status update were built on its own single page.
Facebook instead uses simple HTML and CSS templates that are changed with JavaScript on the fly as new information comes in.
The same idea works for shopping websites like Amazon.
Mobile App Development
JavaScript changes the search results and shop pages on Amazon on the fly as items sell out and new ones come in.
Phone App Development: JavaScript tools like React Native, Ionic, NativeScript, and Apache Cordova let developers make native and hybrid apps for both Android and iOS.
Facebook, Google, Uber, and Instagram all make apps for phones that use JavaScript.
JS is quick, useful, and easy to understand. And because JavaScript is so popular, it's easy to find people who can write code in it.
Artificial intelligence (AI)
In the past few years, JavaScript has been used by developers to make AI-powered apps and systems.
JS tools like TensorFlow.js and Brain.js let you create and train machine learning models that can be used for recommendation systems and sentiment analysis.
Other libraries can be used to help natural language processing (NLP) systems handle and understand human language.
JavaScript is used to make everything, even apps like ChatGPT.
What makes JavaScript different from other languages?
These are some ways that JavaScript is different from other computer languages:
It's a language that is translated
In other words, it can be run right in a browser.
Some languages, like Java, C, and C++, are compiled, which means they need to be turned into machine code before they can be run.
Dynamic typing is used
When you use dynamic typing, variable types are linked to values that are set at runtime instead of named or stated fields.
Developers can write code faster because they don't have to think about what type of variable to use.
A programmer might give the variable "a" the value 100, as an example. At runtime, the compiler will figure out that "a" is a number.
This does, however, mean that variable types could be read wrongly when they are run. This might lead to bugs and mistakes.
It's mostly used for client-side execution
In a way that no other language can, JavaScript is run in the user's computer browser. Not on the web.
This means that JavaScript can talk to the user, react to what they type, and change the page's content on the fly without having to talk to a server.
Other important languages, like PHP and Ruby, are mostly used on the computer.
It's everywhere
JavaScript is becoming a general-purpose language, which is different from many other programming languages that can only be used in a few situations.
All of the big browsers can handle it.
You can use it on both the client side and the server side.
It can also be used to make tools, websites, and apps for phones.
What are the good and bad things about JavaScript?
Some of the pros and cons of JavaScript are listed below.
The pros
Using JavaScript has a lot of benefits, such as:
It's not too hard to learn and use.
It can be used on the front end, back end, client side, or server side.
It gives websites movement and interaction.
Because it's so popular, there are a lot of helpful tools out there.
It works on many devices and systems.
It lets programs work on different platforms.
All of the top web browsers can use it.
There are a lot of libraries, frameworks, and APIs that can make jobs easier.
For client-side work and easy jobs, it's quick.
It gets along well with other computer languages.
Some problems
There are some bad things about using JavaScript, like the following:
It can be slow for jobs that need a lot of processing power.
Since you can see the client's browser, there are security issues.
It can be hard to find and fix bugs.
JavaScript may not work on a page if there are errors.
Too much JavaScript could slow down a website's loading time and speed.
Crawlers might have trouble reading and crawling JS material.
Different browsers understand JS in different ways, which leads to different experiences.
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