JAVASCRIPT

5 min readJun 23, 2021

History

The first-ever JavaScript was created by Brendan Eich at Netscape. Netscape is the most dominant web browser in the year 1994.

When Eich created JavaScript in 1995, he created it for Netscape Navigator and it quickly became known as LiveScript. In another quirk of JavaScript history, the team changed the name to Javascript to reflect Netscape’s support of Java within its browser. While this definitely sounds confusing (and yes, it confuses people to this day), at the time people said it was a “marketing tactic” to connect a brand new language (JavaScript) to a popular language at the time (Java), regardless of the fact that JavaScript and Java have almost nothing to do with each other.

The way Eich saw it, higher-end programmers used Java and it might be considered a “component language.” Eich created JavaScript to fill the need for a “glue language” used by informal programmers and designers. This allowed programmers to use Javascript to put together components and automate interactions.

By 1996, JavaScript’s importance grew so much that it was handed over to an international standards scripting language body called ECMA (European Computer Manufacturers Association), which is responsible for the development and upkeep of this language to this day. As a result, the scripting language was officially given the name ‘ECMAScript’ (or ‘ECMA-262’), however, people still call it JavaScript.

ECMA standards process runs in cycles — ECMAScript 2 was released in 1998, and ECMAScript 3 was released in 1999, which evolved into today’s modern JavaScript. Even though Microsoft proceeded to implement some of the proposals in their JScript language, it became clear that Microsoft would not implement JavaScript in Internet Explorer.

JAVASCRIPT POPULARITY

JAVASCRIPT WAS CONSIDERED THE MOST POPULAR PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES IN THE YEAR 2021

Javascript is the most popular programming language with nearly 14M developers using it globally. Even in software sectors developers prefer javascript for development and in data science-related fields. After javascript python is the second most preferred programming language.

There are over 1.8 Billion websites in the world, and JavaScript is used on 95% of them. Almost all the big sites like Google, Instagram, LinkedIn id made up of javascript if javascript is not there then these sites will not work properly.

JavaScript can run everywhere, including:

Devices like mobiles, tablets, and laptops
On the client-side as well as the server-side

This ability to run everywhere makes JavaScript a universal language.

JavaScript has been around for 25 years and has a vast community behind it. A developer is spoiled for choice. The community has built so many plugins and frameworks that the phrase “framework fatigue” was coined.

COMPANIES USING JAVASCRIPT

Some top 10 tech companies using javascript

MICROSOFT

PAYPAL

NETFLIX

UBER

FACEBOOK

GOOGLE

EBAY

WALMART

CASE STUDY

Microsoft

Okay, so you’re probably not going to find JavaScript powering Windows anytime soon, but Microsoft relies on JavaScript for a whole lot else.

First off, Microsoft needs to work closely with JavaScript to built its Edge web browser. All browsers need to process and execute JavaScript efficiently, so Microsoft has developed and maintains its own JavaScript engine for Edge. Actually, there has been talking of them creating an alternate version of NodeJS with the Edge engine.

Recently, Microsoft has really embraced NodeJS. They thoroughly support Node on the Azure cloud platform. It's one of Azure’s major features, and they’ve integrated Visual Studio support for Node.

Microsoft has also developed a version of Node for Internet Of Things(IoT) applications. NodeJS is great for IoT because it’s lightweight and efficient.

PayPal

PayPal has obviously been using JavaScript on the front end of their website for a long time, but that’s only the beginning.

The online payment giant was one of the earliest adopters of NodeJS. During an overhaul of their account overview page, they decided to try building the page in Node at the same time as their usual Java development. The NodeJS version worked out so well, that they chose to use it in production and build all client-facing applications in Node going forward. That means that most of what you see in your account is running on Node.

PayPal even went as far as to create and maintain their own version of Express, called Kraken. It’s pretty obvious that they like JavaScript over at PayPal.

Netflix

Like PayPal, Netflix started out using Java for just about everything. They too ran into problems with Java’s size and the time it required to develop.

Over time, Netflix moved away from its more traditional structure into the cloud and started to introduce NodeJS. With Node, Netflix was able to break down pieces of their user interface into individual services. This more distributed approach was able to speed things up and alleviate stress on their servers. Today, a large portion of Netflix’s interface is running on Node.

Groupon

Groupon used to be infamously slow. Why? They were powered by Ruby on Rails. That’s the same framework that brought you the Twitter fail whale.

Groupon was all one gigantic Ruby on Rails application. Thanks to difficulties in speed and maintainability, they decided to change over to NodeJS. Node allowed Groupon to rebuild its entire US website by breaking down everything into individual NodeJS web applications. Now, Groupon is made up of over 20 Node applications, and it moves much faster as a whole.

Groupon is currently moving all of its international sites to NodeJS and has joined the NodeJS Foundation. It’s pretty clear that they are happy with their change.

Uber

Uber needs to handle loads of data in real-time. They have millions of requests coming in continuously, and that does not just hit on a page. Uber needs to track driver locations, rider locations, and incoming ride requests. It has to seamlessly sort that data and match riders as fast as possible.

All of that plays to NodeJS’s and JavaScript’s strengths. Node is designed to handle requests and handoff data quickly. Its asynchronous capabilities are a huge part of that. Node is central to Uber’s user-facing stack for just that reason.