Preface
Iâm sure you noticed, but âJSâ in the series title is not an abbreviation for words used to curse about JavaScript, though cursing at the languageâs quirks is something we can probably all identify with!
From the earliest days of the Web, JavaScript has been a foundational technology that drives interactive experience around the content we consume. While flickering mouse trails and annoying pop-up prompts may be where JavaScript started, nearly two decades later, the technology and capability of JavaScript has grown many orders of magnitude, and few doubt its importance at the heart of the worldâs most widely available software platform: the Web.
But as a language, it has perpetually been a target for a great deal of criticism, owing partly to its heritage but even more to its design philosophy. Even the name evokes, as Brendan Eich once put it, âdumb kid brotherâ status next to its more mature older brother, Java. But the name is merely an accident of politics and marketing. The two languages are vastly different in many important ways. âJavaScriptâ is as related to âJavaâ as âCarnivalâ is to âCar.â
Because JavaScript borrows concepts and syntax idioms from several languages, including proud C-style procedural roots as well as subtle, less obvious Scheme/Lisp-style functional roots, it is exceedingly approachable to a broad audience of developers, even those with little to no programming experience. The âHello Worldâ of JavaScript is ...
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