3Language Basics

At the core of any language is a description of how it should work at the most basic level. This description typically defines syntax, operators, data types, and built-in functionality upon which complex solutions can be built. As previously mentioned, ECMA-262 defines all of this information for JavaScript in the form of a pseudolanguage called ECMAScript.

ECMAScript as defined in ECMA-262 is implemented with increasing uniformity across all major browsers. A decade ago, major browsers had widely divergent support for some ECMAScript features. Today, features included in the annual ECMAScript editions are usually supported by all major browsers in less than a year.

SYNTAX

ECMAScript's syntax borrows heavily from C and other C-like languages such as Java and Perl. Developers familiar with such languages should have an easy time picking up the somewhat looser syntax of ECMAScript.

Case-Sensitivity

The first concept to understand is that everything is case-sensitive; variables, function names, and operators are all case-sensitive, ...

Get Professional JavaScript for Web Developers, 5th Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.