What Is JavaScript?

JavaScript is a high-level, interpreted programming language that has been widely used since its release in 1995. JavaScript is currently the world’s 11th most popular programming language. JavaScript is commonly used in dynamic web pages to provide extended functionalities such as form submission/validation, interactivity, animations, user activity tracking and more. In order to do this, a JavaScript function is embedded in an HTML page, where it can interact with that page’s Document Object Model (DOM) to perform specific functions. JavaScript is not to be confused with the Java programming language – the languages are both object-oriented, have C-like syntaxes and share several names and naming conventions, but are otherwise not related. In addition to its use in web browser applications, Javascript is increasingly used in mobile applications, via cross-platform development tools like Titanium and PhoneGap, and in server-side code via frameworks like Node.js.