JavaScript
In the 21st century, we have massive access to information through the world wide web. With easy access to the internet in the palm of our hands, we can communicate with others, learn new skills, and broaden our horizons through websites and applications. It has gotten to the point where it has become an everyday use of our personal lives. Many popular websites, such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter, all use a variety of programming languages for their application to be used on multiple platforms. However, it involves two different development approaches for the application to work. You would need to have both a front-end web developer and a back-end developer work together to ensure the website would run well. The most common programming language used for web development is Javascript, as it can be used for both front-end and back-end web development.
Front End Web Development
Javascript is a powerful language when it comes to web design development. It is what makes the website interactive. It gives the website application the functionality that other languages, such as HTML and CSS, have. Those languages more so focus on the aesthetics and structure of the application. With Javascript, there’s a lot more creativity with its functionality, such as creating pop-ups, navigation menus, tabs, form validations, and much more. A lot of functions rely on Javascript, especially with plugins. If there is ever a feature with chat support or ad banner, it was created using Javascript language. Another is its versatility with multiple browsers of the clients’ preference. Usually, these browsers, such as Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, have their versions of operating systems. With Javascript it is easily used because of its compatibility across all applications.
When a client opens up a browser from their computer or device, they see the web browser displayed for them. These web developers need knowledge of Javascript, HTML, or CSS to build a web application and make it worthwhile. That means the developer needs to keep in mind how to make the application interactive and easy-to-use for the client because they essentially leave an impression with their work — the most common language used to code front-end web development. In many discussions, it is the most preferred language to use when developing a web application. Many major companies, such as Facebook, Google, and eBay, use Javascript on their web applications due to its versatility.
Back End Web Development
Back End Web Development is usually towards the server aspect of development. Which its main focus is databases, scripting, and website architecture. The crucial skills that back-end web developers need to have and understand are development languages, databases and cache, and much more. They need to look at different perspectives to use the website efficiently. Meaning that they need to develop efficient solutions to create an application that can help support the front-end developers. This means making sure the application can be used and function properly. The back-end developer’s primary focus is to create an efficient application and ensure the site is fast enough for the client to interact.
Javascript is also very versatile in Back End Web Development as well. This is because the language can offer a variety of features such as “Light-weight Scripting language, Dynamic Typing, Interpreted, Object-Oriented programming support, Client-Side Validation,[and] Huge community support[…]”. Back End Web Development is essential as it deals with the server aspect of the web application. It stores data and works with the front-end web development to create a smooth interface for the client. Javascript is most commonly used when creating a web application, especially in Back End Web Development, because you have a more straightforward interpretation of the client data and can be used with Front-End development. Essentially, back-end web developers do all behind-the-scenes work while front-end web developers use it.
A version that back-end developers used Javascript in Node.js. The Node.js framework allows data to update from the front-end side.
History of Javascript
Now you may be wondering when and how Javascript was created. Javascript was invented in September 1995 by Brendan Eich, a Netscape programmer. Initially, it had multiple names before it became Javascript. It first was named Mocha, then changed to LiveScript, then switched to officially Javascript. Even though there is no commonality between the Javascript programming language and Java programming language, it was named Javascript because it was to deter the attention away from the programming language, Java. Now, Javascript is one of the most popular and used languages due to the community’s continuous support and how dynamic it can be. Due to the growth of the Javascript language used, Netscape decided to create the European Computer Manufacturers Association (ECMA) to keep the language monitored. Later on, Javascript was officially pushed to become a professional programming language after Jesse James Garret introduced Ajax. It was revolutionary for the programming language as it pushed the Javascript language into the spotlight. Javascript has multiple libraries and frameworks, such as Ember, Angular, and React. A language that is very useful and efficient amongst developers who develop web applications.
Benefits of Using Javascript
Javascript is a prevalent language to use, especially in web development, due to its versatility in the front-end and back-end sides of development. One of the main reasons Javascript is so popular amongst web developers is due to its versatilities of working with different applications and browsers and working with various programming languages to create these web applications. Another reason why it is so popular amongst users is the simplicity of the code. It has a very straightforward structure that is very easy to learn and understand. This makes it easy for the developers to use for web development because that “It is also very easy to implement […]”. Leading to how Javascript is compatible with other languages since “We can embed it into any webpage or inside the script of another programming language”.
Not only that, but since Javascript is an ‘interpreted’ language, it reduces time compared to its language counterparts. Since Javascript is used on the client-side of the application, it is a lot easier to do data validation on the browser or application itself rather than relying on the server to respond to the information, making it much lighter on the server load. The application doesn’t need to be reloaded every time the client inputs new data into the website. There is also less overhead when using Javascript because it enhances the features on the web applications while also reducing the length of code needed to have those features.
Reducing the length of code and being versatile with many different web applications and programming languages makes it popular for web developers from companies like Google, Amazon, Paypal, and much more. With the popularity of Javascript, many people tend to learn it before other languages because of the simplicity it has and the very straightforward structure that it provides to its developers. Alongside that, most browsers are support Javascript because of the functionality and many unique features it can add to web applications. It has a rich interface, giving the developers more creativity to create web applications that the user can easily use. This gives a lot of freedom to the developers, both front-end and back-end in terms of web development, to create an interactive website for their client and have it be able to use across different browsers.
Disadvantages of Using Javascript
Although there are many uses with Javascript and many advantages with the language, there are also some disadvantages when using Javascript since it is not always perfect. One of the disadvantages of Javascript is the concern of client-side security. Javascript code can be viewed by the general public, leading many people to use it to not its intended use. This can include sourcing the code without authentication, which impacts the security of the data of the web application. Another reason would also be that the Javascript code can also be easily changed.
Even though Javascript is versatile and can be used on many different web applications and browsers, Javascript can be interpreted differently depending on the browser. So some older browsers won’t support some of the code that Javascript has while others do. It is also inefficient to debug since it doesn’t have an excellent debugging facility. This makes it very difficult for developers to find the problems and errors in their code since sometimes the browser itself won’t show any errors. Making it very possible for rendering to stop. When a single line of code causes a mistake, it can prevent the whole website from rendering. However, from the user’s point of view, it just looks like there is no Javascript code in use on the application.
Examples of Code
Example of Javascript with If statement:
var time = new Date().getHours();if (time < 20) {document.getElementById(“demo”).innerHTML = “Good day”;}Example of Javascript with Loop statement:for (let i = 0; i < cars.length; i++) {text += cars[i] + “<br>”;}
Takeaway
Javascript is a versatile programming language that can be used in both the back-end and the front-end of web development. This makes it one of the popular web development programming languages to be used. Due to its versatility of the language, many popular companies and their web developers use it because it is easy to learn and it is simple to use. Alongside that, it can be used across different browsers and be embedded into other languages on the web application. Overall, the popularity and usage of Javascript will continue to rise as modern-day browsers continue to develop and improve themselves.
