Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Netscape and Sun Announce JavaScript (1995)

web.archive.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 476 posts

Re: Netscape and Sun Announce JavaScript (1995)

#141

Post by bdickason »

atum47 wrote: post #123

I bought a book, when I was about 12-15 years old, called DHTML (Dynamic HTML). It blew my mind to see things moving across the screen with just code. Keep in mind that I learned pure html when I was 10, my websites were all very static (apart from a animated GIF here and there). The only way you could do a cool menu, effect or animation, was with Java Applet (which I learned after purchasing a online Java course tha…

I remember this book! I think it was red with a yellow font maybe? Agree with you on the alert(‘hello’) :)

Re: Netscape and Sun Announce JavaScript (1995)

#143

Post by vips7L »

desmap wrote: post #118

OT: I recently learned C++ after doing JS/TS for years. This was an eye-opener because there were so many similarities which JS inherited from C/C++. Plus stuff I've seen in other languages and environments. After this, I thought that everybody should learn C/C++ at school, it's like Latin to other languages (I learned Turbo Pascal at school and didn't like how it handled pointers and its overall elaborative style).

C/C++ isn't a language! They're completely separate.

Re: Netscape and Sun Announce JavaScript (1995)

#144

Post by ptx »

cesarb wrote: post #64
netdur wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what? Imagine a world without Javascript? You have mini extension in browser to just auto refresh gmail

> You have mini extension in browser to just auto refresh gmail That existed without JavaScript (and IIRC it was somewhat common back when JavaScript was a novelty):

Periodically tearing down the entire UI while the user is in the middle of using it is a terrible user experience.

Re: Netscape and Sun Announce JavaScript (1995)

#145

Post by _fat_santa »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #41
netdur wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what? Imagine a world without Javascript? You have mini extension in browser to just auto refresh gmail

Imagine a world without Javascript? What a dream.

If we had a world without Javascript it would probably be some nightmare with SaaS companies building their apps in Flash or something.

Re: Netscape and Sun Announce JavaScript (1995)

#146

Post by mrlala »

pmarin wrote: post #10
flohofwoe wrote: post #5

Nothing technically wrong with Java and JS of course, but this terrible PR piece which desperately tries to pitch Java as an integral part of the web, going even as far as naming an innocent scripting language for web browsers JAVA script truly demonstrates that the mid-to-end-90's were the dark age of computing (at least the corporate side).

web ASSEMBLY is not much better name.

Eh, the thing is until you said that it never occurred to me. However before I started to ever really code in the web world I was always wondering if javascript was really like a semi-java hack on the web or whatever.

Everyone knows that we are so far removed from assembly that it creates zero confusion in reality.. javascript caused real confusion.

Re: Netscape and Sun Announce JavaScript (1995)

#147

Post by Supermancho »

overkill28 wrote: post #36

I still don't know why they stuck the "Java" name on JavaScript. Very confusing when the two languages are completely unrelated. > Java programs and JavaScript scripts are designed to run on both clients and servers, with JavaScript scripts used to modify the properties and behavior of Java objects, so the range of live online applications that dynamically present information to and interact with users over enterpris…

Some of the JS api (method names) matched the uniquely Java api.

Re: Netscape and Sun Announce JavaScript (1995)

#148

Post by petercooper »

nonesuchluck wrote: post #139

Not being on the web until the late 90s, the part I've never figured out is, what could you actually _do_ with JavaScript in the initial versions? The way I understand it, early JavaScript could only address HTML forms, links, and images. Can't modify HTML tags. Can't insert new elements. Can't update the page and re-render until DHTML in the version 4 browsers. Can't query the network until XHR. Ok, so now what? Do…

Check out the JavaScript newsgroup from 1996 to see what people were discussing and trying to achieve :-) https://groups.google.com/g/comp.lang.javascript/search?q=af...

Re: Netscape and Sun Announce JavaScript (1995)

#149

Post by RobAley »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #41
netdur wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what? Imagine a world without Javascript? You have mini extension in browser to just auto refresh gmail

Imagine a world without Javascript? What a dream.

Be the change you want to see. Your personal website linked to from your HN profile consists solely of a Javascript game ... :)

Re: Netscape and Sun Announce JavaScript (1995)

#150

Post by ptx »

toyg wrote: post #102
greenkey wrote: post #7

I wish Matz had been there with Rubyscript. JS wasn’t as powerful back then; it took over a decade for it to evolve enough where people would really use it for much other than client-side validation and neat UI tricks. In comparison, Ruby was a great language to use, and it would’ve grown more quickly.

Ruby was first released on the same year. Python had been around for 4 years already. What could have been, eh...

There was (in 1995) a Python-based web browser called Grail[1] that could run client-side Python applets[2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grail_(web_browser)

[2] http://grail.sourceforge.net/info/papers/restofus.html#apple...

Post reply on HN