The Web Developer Constant
By: Vaishnavi Vadali
Tags: Angularjs, Javascript Frameworks, JavaScript, Nodejs, React

In a field that evolves everyday, if there is something that has existed since its inception, its JavaScript. Be it front-end or back-end, full-stack development using MEAN or MERN stack, JavaScript is the backbone and every web developer’s favorite. What led to the popularity of this language which was created in less than two weeks with an entirely different purpose in mind?

The Beginning

With the internet boom in the 90s, tech giants competed to build the most powerful and efficient web browser sparking the first ‘browser war’ between Microsoft(Internet Explorer) and Netscape(Netscape Navigator).

Netscape needed a lightweight scripting language for easier programming. This actually made web development more accessible, unlike other languages that required deeper training. In 1995, a Netscape employee, Brendan Eich, was given ten days to help build the company a lightweight scripting language. As a result, Eich built Mocha, which was later renamed as JavaScript. And yes, JavaScript celebrates it’s 25th birthday today!

Source:https://www.arnnet.com.au/slideshow/557401/pictures-visual-history-netscape-navigator/

JavaScript was thus never intended to become the standard language for the web! Eventually, Netscape was acquired by AOL, handed over their browser’s code to the Mozilla Foundation and the popularity of JavaScript grew. How popular, you ask. According to the GitHub Octoverse Survey 2020, JavaScript is the most popular programming language with the number of opened pull requests. Pull requests are an indicator of the amount of code being written.

Source:octoverse.github.com

The rise to power

Starting off, JavaScript was the first widely supported language which was implemented across all browsers. And it rose to prominence due to its simplicity. It doesn’t require a compiler, there are no type checks, knowledge about classes etc. The gap between getting started to building something is thin in JavaScript. If you wanted to show a popup, only JavaScript could do that. This led to a natural path of world dominance, which we still see as of today.

It has package managers that are simple and intuitive. This is crucial since package managers let developers share their code between teams and save a lot of time. There is a huge developer community for JavaScript constantly working on new features and frameworks. Modern frameworks like React, Angular, and Vue.js are being optimized for better performance-so much so, that the word “framework fatigue” was coined.

The introduction of Node.js was an absolute game changer. Previously, we were constrained by the browser. With the release of Node, we could write our application in one language — both back and front end. Many well-known companies including LinkedIn changed their server-side code to Node.js. Shifting to JavaScript made the LinkedIn mobile app two to ten times faster than it was before.

PayPal, Yahoo, Netflix, Slack, GoDaddy have written their web applications fully in JavaScript. AdBlock Plus, HubSpot, LastPass and many other popular browser extensions run JS under the hood. Slack, Lightshot, Mozilla, Greasemonkey are desktop apps built with JavaScript. PayPal migrated from Java to JavaScript. And Facebook always has its back supporting React and React Native technologies, constantly improving and developing them.

What else

JavaScript has the potential of expanding into other innovative technologies such as virtual reality and gaming. JavaScript is excellent for animating, rendering and scaling. Projects like Supernova and BAYOU have made substantial breakthroughs in integrating JavaScript with artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Node.js is being adopted in IoT use cases for both the device and the server. It is easy to use, fast, has lots of plugins, is scalable and is good at I/O, holds effective and secure communications, and more. There are a lot of engines that provide APIs to JavaScript, allowing it to interact with a microcontroller. IoT JavaScript libraries like Johnny-five.io, Zetta.js, Cylon.js, Nodered, Device.js are famous among hardware engineers.

React Native library made JavaScript popular in the mobile development industry. Appearing open source in 2013, it made cross-platform mobile applications by using React and JavaScript possible. React Native saves time, shortens the development process and being a JavaScript framework, it makes the transition from web to mobile development smooth. React Native enable code-reusability and sharing twice effective. The best part is its almost-native nature. Though it is written in JavaScript, it looks and feels like a native app written in a native language.