Chapter 1
The World's Most Misunderstood Programming Language
In This Chapter
Getting to know JavaScript
Figuring out what JavaScript does
Understanding why you need JavaScript
“People understand me so poorly that they don't even understand my complaint about them not understanding me.”
— Søren Kierkegaard
JavaScript hasn’t always been as highly regarded as it is today. Some people have called it the best and worst programming language in the world. Over the last few years, there have been a great number of improvements made to the way programmers write JavaScript and to JavaScript interpreters. These improvements have made JavaScript a much better language today than it’s been in the past.
In this chapter, you discover what JavaScript is and a little bit of the history of the language. You also find out what JavaScript does and why you need to know it.
Don’t forget to visit the website to check out the online exercises relevant to this chapter!
What Is JavaScript?
Back in the very early days of the web, browsers were simple readers for web pages (see Figure 1-1). They ...
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