JavaScript

n. interpreted scripting language used to create applets for embedding within HTML documents (Computers)

JavaScript is a scripting language most often used for client-side web development. It is a dynamic, weakly typed, prototype-based language with first-class functions. Currently, "JavaScript" is an implementation of the ECMAScript standard.JavaScript was influenced by many languages and was designed to have a similar look to Java, but be easier for non-programmers to work with. The language is best known for its use in websites (as client-side JavaScript), but is also used to enable scripting access to objects embedded in other applications.
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javascript, basic programming language used for linkage in World Wide Web pages and which is based on simplification of the Java programming language (Computers)

n. javascript, interpreted scripting language used to create applets for embedding within HTML documents (Computers)

<language> (Formerly "LiveScript") Netscape's simple, cross-platform, World-Wide Web scripting language, only very vaguely related to Java (which is a Sun trademark). JavaScript is intimately tied to the World-Wide Web, and currently runs in only three environments - as a server-side scripting language, as an embedded language in server-parsed HTML, and as an embedded language run in web browsers where it is the most important part of DHTML.
JavaScript has a simplified C-like syntax and is tightly integrated with the browser Document Object Model. It is useful for implementing enhanced forms, simple web database front-ends, and navigation enhancements.
JavaScript originated from Netscape and, for a time, only their products supported it. Microsoft now supports a work-alike called JScript. The resulting inconsistencies make it difficult to write JavaScript that behaves the same in all browsers. This could be attributed to the slow progress of JavaScript through the standards bodies.
JavaScript runs "100x" slower than C, as it is purely interpreted (Java runs "10x" slower than C code). Netscape and allies say JavaScript is an "open standard" in an effort to keep Microsoft from monopolising web software as they have desktop software. Netscape and Sun have co-operated to enable Java and JavaScript to exchange messages and data.
See also VBScript.
Usenet newsgroup: news:comp.lang.javascript.
Mailing List: majordomo@obscure.org ("subscribe javascript" in body).
(2003-04-28)