History of JavaScript

• Created by Brendan Eich in just 10 days while working at Netscape.
• Originally called Mocha, later renamed LiveScript, and finally JavaScript.
• Purpose: make websites interactive (e.g., form validation, simple animations).

• Netscape Navigator first shipped JavaScript.
• Microsoft created a competitor called JScript in Internet Explorer.
• Resulted in browser wars (1990s) → inconsistent behavior across browsers.

• To avoid chaos, JavaScript was standardized by ECMA International as ECMAScript (ES).
• ECMAScript 1 (ES1) was released in 1997.
• Each version added new features and improvements.

• ES3 (1999): Regular expressions, try/catch, better string handling.
• ES5 (2009): JSON support, strict mode, array methods like forEach, map.
• ES6 / ES2015: Biggest update! Introduced let, const, arrow functions, classes, promises, modules.
• Later versions (ES2016+): Async/await, optional chaining, modules, modern features every year.

• Runs not only in browsers but also on servers (via Node.js).
• Powers front-end frameworks (React, Angular, Vue).
• Used in mobile apps, desktop apps, IoT, AI tools.
• Today, JavaScript is the most popular language on the web.