A Fascinating And Messy History of the Web and JavaScript, Explained with Video

rajaraodv
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3 min readNov 11, 2017

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The history of the web and JavaScript is truly fascinating. 😲

So I created this 19-minute video to help web developers understand it and learn from it.

In summary, you’ll learn the following:

  • What JavaScript, the DOM, and CSS are, and how they came about.
  • What ECMAScript, W3C, and TC39 are, and how they came about.
  • That the evolution of these technologies didn’t happen in straight lines. There will be periods of chaos, periods of stagnation, periods of innovation, and so on.
  • Contrary to the myth that “startups innovate and big companies don’t do much”, big companies do innovate a lot. But they also have strategic interests. And history shows that big companies actually run the show.
  • Don’t wed yourself to a framework or a library.
  • Standards are created to democratize innovations. Understanding standards, and participating in things like W3C and TC39 help everyone.

Further, you’ll learn that although there is a lot going on in the JavaScript world, things will be better in the coming future:

  1. Expect “standards” to emerge
  2. Expect future tools to abstract away a complexities (like create-react-app did)
  3. Expect “simpler” and “smaller” frameworks to emerge. They will be much simpler than React, Vue, and current leading frameworks!

Note that this talk mainly focuses on the perspective of the creators of browser and JavaScript itself. It doesn’t talk about evolution of servers or mobile technologies.

Thank you for watching! 🙏🏼

You can follow me on Twitter and tweet any questions you may have about this to me.

🙏🏼 Thank you!

If this was useful, please click the clap 👏 button down below a few times to show your support! ⬇⬇⬇ 🙏🏼

My Other Posts

ECMAScript 2015+

  1. Check out these useful ECMAScript 2015 (ES6) tips and tricks
  2. 5 JavaScript “Bad” Parts That Are Fixed In ES6
  3. Is “Class” In ES6 The New “Bad” Part?

Terminal Improvements

  1. How to Jazz Up Your Terminal — A Step By Step Guide With Pictures
  2. Jazz Up Your “ZSH” Terminal In Seven Steps — A Visual Guide

WWW

  1. A Fascinating And Messy History Of The Web And JavaScript

Virtual DOM

  1. Inner Workings Of The Virtual DOM

React Performance

  1. Two Quick Ways To Reduce React App’s Size In Production
  2. Using Preact Instead Of React

Functional Programming

  1. JavaScript Is Turing Complete — Explained
  2. Functional Programming In JS — With Practical Examples (Part 1)
  3. Functional Programming In JS — With Practical Examples (Part 2)
  4. Why Redux Need Reducers To Be “Pure Functions”

WebPack

  1. Webpack — The Confusing Parts
  2. Webpack & Hot Module Replacement [HMR] (under-the-hood)
  3. Webpack’s HMR And React-Hot-Loader — The Missing Manual

Draft.js

  1. Why Draft.js And Why You Should Contribute
  2. How Draft.js Represents Rich Text Data

React And Redux :

  1. Step by Step Guide To Building React Redux Apps
  2. A Guide For Building A React Redux CRUD App (3-page app)
  3. Using Middlewares In React Redux Apps
  4. Adding A Robust Form Validation To React Redux Apps
  5. Securing React Redux Apps With JWT Tokens
  6. Handling Transactional Emails In React Redux Apps
  7. The Anatomy Of A React Redux App
  8. Why Redux Need Reducers To Be “Pure Functions”
  9. Two Quick Ways To Reduce React App’s Size In Production

If you have questions, please feel free to ask me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rajaraodv

If this was useful, please click the clap 👏 button below a few times to show your support! ⬇⬇⬇ 🙏🏼

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