JavaScript is one of the most in-demand languages in programming today. It has been gaining popularity since the early 2000s and is still one of the most advanced languages.
In this article we will find out what kind of language it is, where it is used, why you should learn it and what the future holds for JS.
JavaScript was originally designed to work with web pages, web applications, so it is closely related to front-end development.
The purpose of JS was to optimize performance so that user actions are executed by the browser quickly in real time.
It is in JavaScript programmed all the pop-ups, animations, push buttons, fields for data entry and only when you enter the data is sent to the server.
Everything what we do to execute any program is called a script or program.
There are two ways to execute a program:
compilation - converting source code to machine code (code that a computer can understand);
Interpretation - the interpreter takes the code and runs it as is. The interpreter passes the code piece by piece.
All modern browsers Chrome, Mozilla Firefox already have a built-in JavaScript interpreter, so the browsers execute this code in real-time, very quickly.
Any user can find JS code of any site in real time, change it at will and see what happens. This is one of the advantages of the JavaScript programming language.
JavaScript is a client or in other words a frontend language, something that directly interacts with the user.
PHP, Perl, Ruby, Python are server-side languages because their scripts are on a remote computer, and that is where they are executed.
You can do anything in JavaScript - online chats, bots, robots, mobile applications, mobile websites, games, 3D games.
Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) offer an extension to how you can use JavaScript code. APIs are off-the-shelf code sets that allow a developer to quickly and correctly insert a ready-made block of code.
Does JS have a future?
The web industry is growing very fast right now and JS will be at its peak for a long time to come; it will transform, but nevertheless never fade into oblivion.