Introduction | Basics | Scripts and Programs | History of Java
The world wide web began as text-only medium-the first browsers
didn't even support images within web pages. Although it's still not
quite ready togive televsion a run for its money, the Web has come
long way since then.
In the world of science fiction movies computers are often seen obeying
commands in English. Although this might indeed happen in the near
future, computers currently find it easier to understand languages such
as BASIC, C and Java.
If you know how to use XHTML to create a web document you've already
worked with one computer language. You use XHTML tags to describe how
you want your document formatted, and the browser obeys your commands
and show the formatted document to the user.
A movie or a play follows a script - a list of actions (or lines) for the
actors to perform. A web script provides the same type of instructions for
a web browser. A script in JavaScript can range from a single line to a
full-scale application.
JavaScript was developed by Netscape Communications Corporation, the maker
of the Netscape web browser. JavaScript was the first web scripting language
to be supported by browsers, and is still by far the most popular.