JS: A multipurpose programming language
Updated: Feb 22
JS (JavaScript) has marked a before and an after in the software development industry.
Many companies that are dedicated to developing software, mobile apps and web design based their products in JS.
What is JS?
JS is a programming language for web development.
JavaScript is a non compiled programming language, it is interpreted on web browsers and runs despite you are using a PC or mobile devices.
Along HTML (Markup language) and CSS (Style rules), are the tools every Frontend developer must learn.
When it was created, JS was only used for frontend development (Client-side). Nowadays, both frontend and backend (Server-side) can be developed using JavaScript, and that has increased its popularity. The most common framework for backend development in JS is NodeJs.
History (short version)
JavasCript was created by Brendan Eich, when he was working for Netscape. In the beginning it was known under the name of Mocha, then it changed to LiveScript and finally received the JavaScript name.
It was first released in 1995 as part of Netscape. In 1996 it was submitted to ECMA international. It has traveled a long road towards standardization. This was completely achieved only in ECMAScript 5 standard, released in December 2009.
Currently, JavaScript belongs to Oracle and is used by a lot of companies.
What is JS used for?
Frontend: JS with HTML and CSS are the default tools for developing client-side websites.
Backend: with server-side frameworks, like NodeJs, JS works for backend developments. This means that JS is a full stack programming language.
Mobile apps: JS can be used for developing mobile apps, however, they don’t run natively neither on iOS or Android
Machine Learning: There are different ML libraries for JavaScript. You can program your algorithms and train them using JS.
Web apps: There are plenty of frameworks for maximizing JS for these purposes. Examples of these are React, Angular, and others.