What Is JavaScript?
If you have already mastered HTML coding, it is time for you to learn what JavaScript is. So what is JavaScript, exactly? In simple terms, JavaScript is a client scripting language that gives dynamism in web pages because it can push the boundaries of the read only HTML codes.
Learning this language requires a web developer intermediate knowledge on HTML and basic familiarity on CSS. After the web developer learns this language, he can freely advance to understanding AJAX and PHP. For you to know more about it, continue reading.
A few things that you can do with JavaScript are calling popup messages, changing the properties of elements, displaying the date, rotating pictures, and call events. However, always remember that this language does not need to be compiled since the browser will be the one that will compile and execute for you. Moreover, when coding, all you need to do is insert the script on a web page’s code together with its HTML code.
Many websites are using JavaScript to perform some essential tasks. One of those important tasks is cookie storage, which is vital for e-commerce and social media websites. While some developers use this script for advertising, e-commerce, alerts, and security purposes.
Whenever a person visits a page with JavaScript on it, his browser will read, translate, and execute the embedded script on the page. On the other hand, the execution speed of the script relies on the visitor’s browser and computer speed. Because of that, the developer must always take a note of this to prevent any attempt of stuffing a page with tons of complicated codes that may cause a visitor’s browser to crash.
Moreover, when coding JavaScript, be mindful of preventing any infinite loops on your scripts since JavaScript does not support multithreading. In addition, most of the browsers today do not inform users if there is a faulty line of code in JavaScript, and because of that, debugging many complicated scripts can be difficult. However, a developer might find Internet Explorer useful when debugging scripts since it can provide with error messages if the browsers encounter an error on one of the script’s line.
Even if JavaScript opens many possibilities on a web page, it also has some limitations. First, it is only a client side script. If you are planning to create complicated processes that involve the server, you might need to mix PHP in your code. On the other hand, it is common that some users turn off their browsers’ ability to read JavaScript. In addition, many mobile browsers do not have the capability to read JavaScript properly. However, some of those browsers can read some of the script; nevertheless, the syntaxes they can read is very limited.
The things mentioned above are some of the things you need to know about JavaScript. Briefly, it is a script that makes a web page rich, dynamic, secured, and functional. Moreover, learning JavaScript is the first step every beginner should take before proceeding on learning advanced web developing techniques and languages. It is easy to learn, and learning it does not take a lot of time given that the person already has mastery of HTML.