Introduction to JavaScript
Suggested Reading:
- “JavaScript: The Good Parts” by Douglas Crockford
- JS for Cats http://jsforcats.com/
- Java Script in 10 minutes http://spencertipping.com/js-in-ten-minutes/js-in-ten-minutes.pdf
History
JavaScript (JS) was invented in 1995 for Netscape. It is a high-level programming language that has nothing to do with Java. It was invented as a quick prototyping language rather than a fully fleshed out language. It has curly-bracket syntax, dynamic typing, prototype-based object-orientation, and first-class functions1.
JS programs are run by an interpreter built into the user's web browser (not on the server). It’s typically seen as a client side language, though since the introduction of NodeJS, can now also be seen as a server side language.
Vanilla JS refers to JavaScript without frameworks or additional libraries. Scripts written in Vanilla JS are plain JS codes.
Online Courses
Some links in case you’d like to learn from a more structured, guided approach.
- https://courseduck.com/programming/javascript/
- https://javascript.info/
- http://www.cs.ucc.ie/~gavin/javascript/
First class functions is borrowed from the Scheme programming language. ↩