JavaScript FAQ

Answers to General Questions about...
JavaScript/JScript

1. What is JavaScript?

JavaScript is a platform-independent, event-driven, interpreted programming language developed by Netscape Communications Corp. and Sun Microsystems. Originally called LiveScript (and still called LiveWire^TM by Netscape in its compiled, server-side incarnation), JavaScript is affiliated with Sun's object-oriented programming language Java^TM primarily as a marketing convenience. They interoperate well but are technically, functionally and behaviorally very different.

JavaScript is useful for adding interactivity to the World Wide Web because scripts can be embedded in HTML files (i.e., web pages) simply by enclosing code in a <SCRIPT> </SCRIPT> tag pair. All modern browsers can interpret JavaScript -- albeit with some irritating caveats. (More about them below.)

In practice, JavaScript is a fairly universal extension to HTML that can enhance the user experience through event handling and client-side execution, while extending a web developer's control over the client's browser. And that's worth a FAQ.