JavaScript

JavaScript is a general-purpose computer programming language that is frequently embedded within HTML pages on the World Wide Web to make pages more interactive. JavaScript is not the same as Java, although its syntax is remarkably similar. When JavaScript code is embedded in HTML pages, Web browsers will then execute the JavaScript before displaying the web page for the user. The JavaScript within HTML may also execute in response to user actions on the page. Since in some cases JavaScript may be disabled in the web browser's options, well-designed HTML pages must be functional even if the JavaScript within them is not allowed to execute.

JavaScript has seen several versions since it initial introduction with Netscape Navigator 2.0 in 1995 and the latest version now include new features making it a more robust scripting language. JavaScript script received an added boost when the browser started to expose more of the document object model (DOM) and allowed dynamic changes to the DOM. This gave birth to was to be called Dynamic HTML or DHTML. Not only were HTML elements be exposed to JavaScript programmers, but so were the events allowing JavaScript coded functions to handle those events. No longer were web pages static and it provided a better user interaction with web surfers. Allowing the HTML document to manipulated after the page was served and/or based on user interactions made wave for the next big web technology which made JavaScript indispensable.

The use of JavaScript to communicate in the background with a web server, and then to update small parts of an HTML page asynchronously without the delay or flashing associated with postback (in which the web server sends the browser a completely new HTML page) is broadly called Ajax. In fact, using JavaScript in this manner is so complex that many programmers do not work with JavaScript directly but instead, use one of many Ajax toolkits which group JavaScript into higher functions.

JavaScript has been standardized by the European Computer Manufacturer's Association (ECMA) and is, these days, occasionally referred to as ECMA-script. Despite standardization, web browsers from different companies (or even different versions of a browser from the same company) may not handle JavaScript identically. The uneven treatment of JavaScript by different web browsers is the single greatest challenge in JavaScript programming. It is one reasons why so many programmers use a toolkit instead, and it then becomes the responsibility of the toolkit authors to handle the browser differences correctly in JavaScript.