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Netscape and Sun Announce JavaScript (1995)

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Re: Netscape and Sun Announce JavaScript (1995)

#71

Post by astura »

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…

Brendan Eich addresses that topic in this interview. The whole interview is (very much!) worth a read but here's some key parts about the name

https://www.infoworld.com/article/2653798/javascript-creator...

>It was all within six months from May till December (1995) that it was Mocha and then LiveScript. And then in early December, Netscape and Sun did a license agreement and it became JavaScript. And the idea was to make it a complementary scripting language to go with Java, with the compiled language.

>[The idea of an accessable scripting language] was very strongly held by Marc Andreessen and myself. Bill Joy at Sun was the champion of it, which was very helpful because that’s how we got the name. And we were pushing it as a little brother to Java, as a complementary language like Visual Basic was to C++ in Microsoft’s language families at the time.

Re: Netscape and Sun Announce JavaScript (1995)

#73

Post by cesarb »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #45
krapp wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, Javascript didn't require a compiler, and Java applets were notoriously slow.

I'm not sure JavaScript was any faster than Java at the time. I blame the failure of Java applets on Microsoft who deliberately undermined them.

It was faster. A page with JavaScript loaded instantly, a page with Java locked up the whole browser for around a minute while the JVM started. (That was probably also the start of the "Java is slow" meme: anyone who had ever visited a page with a Java applet immediately learned to associate "Java" with "slow".)

Re: Netscape and Sun Announce JavaScript (1995)

#74

Post by andi999 »

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…

Especially when you couldnt even google it (the other search engines never found anything related to my keywords...)

Re: Netscape and Sun Announce JavaScript (1995)

#75

Post by timw4mail »

mseepgood wrote: post #13

> A server-side JavaScript script might pull data out of a relational database and format it in HTML on the fly I didn't know that server-side JS was a thing back then.

Classic ASP had JScript, I once had the dubious pleasure of using JScript instead of VB on an ASP website.

Re: Netscape and Sun Announce JavaScript (1995)

#76

Post by The_Colonel »

optimalsolver wrote: post #61

It doesn't have to be this way. Hopefully Brython[0] which lets you do client-side Python scripting takes off. Imagine doing full stack web dev without seeing a single line of JS. [0] https://brython.info/

That's just replacing one passable scripting language with another passable scripting language, just with worse performance.

I don't see the point.

Re: Netscape and Sun Announce JavaScript (1995)

#78

Post by bananaface »

logicchains wrote: post #37
Orthw2020 wrote: post #19

What bothers me is that they actually never apologised. A simple statement of acknowledging the damage caused would do!

Its created got fired from his job as CEO for creating it, isn't that punishment enough?

From a utilitarian perspective, probably not.

Re: Netscape and Sun Announce JavaScript (1995)

#79

Post by gspr »

netdur wrote: post #35
Orthw2020 wrote: post #19

What bothers me is that they actually never apologised. A simple statement of acknowledging the damage caused would do!

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

Why would I ever want to touch a webmail interface with a 3 m pole?

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