JavaScript is a high-level, dynamic, untyped, and interpreted programming language. It has been standardized in the ECMAScript language specification. Alongside HTML and CSS, it is one of the three core technologies of World Wide Web content production; it is supported by all modern Web browsers without plug-ins in addition to being the only cross-browser scripting language.
Beginning of JavaScript
Features of JavaScript
- Imperative and Structured (Support much of C Programming feature).
- Dynamic typing.
- Run time evaluation.
- Object-Oriented with the help of prototypes.
- Functions as object constructors
- Functions as methods
- Delegation
- Functions as Roles (Traits and Mixins)
- Object Composition and Inheritance
- Run-time environment
- Variadic functions
- Array and object literals
- Regular expressions
ES6 becomes the latest JavaScript standard and added much more power to JavaScript. Here are some of the features:
- Default Parameters
- Template Literals
- Multi-line Strings
- Destructuring Assignment
- Enhanced Object Literals
- Arrow Functions in ES6
- Promises
- Block-Scoped Constructs Let and Const
- Classes
- Modules
You can learn more about ES6,
- http://es6-features.org/
- https://github.com/lukehoban/es6features
Usage of JavaScript worldwide
JavaScript is everywhere. Most of the modern browser supports JavaScript and it is also supported in mobile devices. JavaScript is the most popular and trending language on GitHub.
See the visualization chart referenced from
githut.info.
Image Courtesy- githut.info/
Tools Build On JavaScript
Look at a mind map of tools build on JavaScript languages and used in different areas.
Reference from: codefellows.org/blog/a-list-of-foundational-javascript-tools
Over the past decade, starting with jQuery empowering Web developers with client-side scripting, every popular plug-in has filled another gap in the language and its capabilities.
React.js, Angular and new wow Vue framework extend HTML syntax to JavaScript while streamlining the coding process with data binding and dependency injection.
- D3.js,C3.Js, Chart.Js, Tui charts, Highcharts Data visualization library extends how data represented on the Web.
- PDF.js Built with HTML5 and used for parsing and rendering PDFs.
- Handlebar.js, Mustache.js, and Jade are template engine to render HTML based on JSON data.
- CoffeeScript and TypeScript are compiling syntax to JavaScript to support type checking and scoping.
- Backbone, Ember, and Grunt make Web application development run smoother and faster.
- Apache Cordova and Bootstrap open JavaScript’s Mobile Web and app development possibilities.
- Node.js, Express.js gives JavaScript the cross-platform runtime to conquer servers, embedded devices, and more.
- MongoDB, Postgresql gives power to backend open source database.
- NPM and Bower are package management tools.
- Grunt.js, Gulp.js, and Browserify.js are building automation tools.
- Cucumber.js, Jasmine, Jest, Mocha, and Q-Unit are testing frameworks.
- Underscore.js and Lo-Dash is a powerful JavaScript utility library.
It's used as a scripting language in Unity3D for Game development.
Meteor Framework for building Full Stack real-time application with the help of Node.js, MongoDB, and Template Engine(React, Angular or Blaze or Vue).
Cylon.js is a JavaScript framework for robotics, physical computing, and the Internet of Things. It makes it incredibly easy to command robots and devices.
It is also used to control hardware https://tessel.io/ or http://www.espruino.com/
There are many more tools that are built on JavaScript language nowadays.
Reference links
I have written articles from reference links as follow:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript
- https://github.com/blog/2047-language-trends-on-github
- https://www.codefellows.org/blog/a-list-of-foundational-javascript-tools
- http://sdtimes.com/the-future-of-javascript-is-almost-now/
- http://githut.info/
- https://cylonjs.com/
- https://github.com/Samsung/iotjs
Conclusion
In this article, we have learned that JavaScript language is used in every area starting with desktop, web, mobile, database, server, and control hardware. The future of JavaScript is very bright.
Read more articles on JavaScript,
Great article. As this article mentioned, JavaScript is one of the most popular Web scripting languages in the world. Today, almost every website in the world uses some form of JavaScript.
JavaScript is also one of the
Best Programming Languages In The World. The demand for JavaScript is still rising. JavaScript also comes in many shapes and forms as mentioned in this article. There are hundreds, if not thousands of open-source JavaScript libraries that are developed by individual developers.
The web is still growing. The demand for client-side websites is growing. The demand for responsive web is growing. That means, JavaScript is still growing. And YES the future of JavaScript brings. Today's browsers are more JavaScript friendly than before.
JavaScript Developers
JavaScript is not a full complete coding stack. It is a supporting skill. Just knowing JavaScript will not get you a job. You need more than that.
Let's say, you want to build Web applications. You will need more than just JavaScript.
- You will need a supporting language and/or framework
- You will need to learn some tools
- You will need to learn the latest libraries built based on JavaScript that is built to solve specific business needs
For example, you may need Visual Studio, CSS, and HTML 5 to take full advantage of JavaScript.
Web Developers and JavaScript
If you're a backend, enterprise, mobile, or Windows developer, you may not need JavaScript but if you're a Web developer and do not have JavaScript in your arsenal, you may want to start learning now. JavaScript definitely is becoming one of the important skills to have in your portfolio.