Lesson #1 – What is Javascript
History of JavaScript starts in 1996 when a Netscape engineer named Brendan Eich developed it. The first release was with Netscape 2. It was originally going to be called LiveScript but they wanted to make it attractive to Java developers so a poor decision was made and they replaced “Live” with “Java”. Apart from curly braces no other connection has to Java language. Today JavaScript is the most used programming language in the world. You can find it not only in web browsers but also in desktop apps, in mobile apps and the last couple of years even on servers.
Netscape submitted the language to Ecma International, a European standards organization, which resulted in the first edition of the ECMAScript standard in 1997. The standard received a significant update as ECMAScript edition 3 in 1999, and has stayed pretty much stable ever since. The fourth edition was abandoned and many parts of the fourth edition formed a basis of the new ECMAScript edition 5 which published in December of 2009.
Though JavaScript and ECMAScript are often used synonymously, JavaScript is much more than just what is defined in ECMA-262.
I suppose the best answer for a beginner to question “What is Javascript?” is this:
Javascript is an object-oriented computer programming language commonly used to create interactive effects within web browsers.
In order to follow these lessons and develop your Javascript applications you will just need a text editor and your favorite browser. Personally i prefer Sublime text editor which you can find it here and as for the browser I always use the latest version of Google Chrome.