What is Javascript - Features and usages

I'm the kind of a person who always likes to get started by installing things & writing some code. I love that but this time JavaScript requires a little bit of the theoretical basic so that we can understand what things we are learning, how hard and powerful it is, and where they can be applied.
To be answering 3 based questions here first and foremost what is JavaScript? and where it can be applied? The second important question is, what is the difference between Java and JavaScript yes we are still doing that question. And the third thing is what is this ES6, ES7 in javascript. All these terms which every new beginner here is quite a lot but don't even have a single thought about what actually it means and why it is being talked quite a lot with JavaScript. First, let's get started with JavaScript.

Now it amuses me a little bit when I ask any experienced programmer who has been working quite a lot but hasn't touched JavaScript or hasn't been involved in the JavaScript news lately and he just says it's just the client language or client-side language and although he is technically totally correct that's not it. JavaScript can be and is a lot more than what it used to be. JavaScript was designed simply to run in a browser but it is doing a lot more than the time that you have the memory of that.
Even the definition on Wikipedia is a little bit strange and honestly a little bit hard to understand. Tt just says, JavaScript of abbreviated as js, a high-level interpreted programming language, and further, it says it is also characterized by the dynamic weekly type prototype-based. All these things are true but it doesn't give you any sense of what JavaScript is and what it can actually do.

I do completely agree here that JavaScript is a client-side language and was totally used in the browser for performing a variety of web-based things in the past but after that JavaScript has evolved a lot. In the previous days if we have to talk a little bit about the server what we used to do is we wrapped over SQL Query, we pack them into the PHP, Python, and Ruby are the languages which are server-side languages and only capable to talk to the server we used to wrap these queries and send to the server and then get a result back in the PHP and display that on the web page.

Yes, that's totally true but now your JavaScript can do all these things as well. The Next question that comes away if I'll be writing all these codes in JavaScript and since JavaScript is a client-side language and usually all that code is submitted to the client as well. No, it doesn't JavaScript has evolved a lot from the memory that you have. Now all of the javascript code that you wright it's your choice totally whether this code should reach the client side or it should only serve on the server. 1 example could be node JS, an entire web server Framework or an entire thing that can handle all of your server-side things and yes totally in JavaScript.

Features of Javascript

So for that, I have to give you a little bit examples of what are the capabilities of JavaScript. First and foremost node.js. Like its entire thing, the entire package can deal with everything on the server-side you can write your queries are you can handle all the tasks that you are able to do in PHP or Ruby or Python or any other language. It can serve as a totally server-side language as well and I am pretty sure that you might have heard about the node JS and its raising its popularity and that's just one thing, so if you ask me hey it can do you like to web thing from the front side and back side & that's it. No, it's not.

 

JavaScript is evolving a lot and you might have heard about the project known as react using react JS you can design your application with just one single code base that can run on mobile as well as IOS, Android, web. There is react-native so it's popular there. Of course, we cannot deny the popularity of Angular JS, your one Framework for mobile and desktop just like almost react but a few additional things less than here and there again regardless of that you might have heard about that and also the popular Framework which is getting really good popularity nowadays is electron JS.

Again design to make a desktop application in just HTML CSS and JavaScript is gaining a lot of popularity. And on top of that VUE JS, a beautiful progressive JavaScript Framework which can help you to design beautiful and amazing animations for the web total in that. Now just to extend things too much for the level these two examples are given extensive detail that how JavaScript is gaining popularity and how is it becoming more popular every single day.

Notice the one here with his react VR. Yes, you can design your total virtual reality experience in simple JavaScript. Also, the recent announcement of tensorflow.js Proves the popularity of JavaScript and that yes even the machine learning task will soon be able to perform in just JavaScript. Now as of now we totally depend on either Python or machine learning but now it can be JavaScript as well and very soon you can be seeing that. And yes all of this is totally possible in JavaScript but not the JavaScript that you have memories or have heard about in those old books or maybe old college curriculum. JavaScript has evolved a lot.

Java vs Javascript

Now this brings us to the next question which still we are doing what's the difference between JavaScript and Java? This was probably the worst decision that javascript ever made is named after Java and yes at that time of the period Java was having so much popularity that it dominated and the decision was so poor the language that introduced in 1995 and still we are making in its 2020 is almost gone and we are still making the videos on Java vs JavaScript the similarity is similar to this example here what is the similarity between a car and a carpet? Yes, exactly NO similarities at all apart from the word car included in the carpet. It doesn't have an engine in carpet, doesn't have an engine, it doesn't have wheels or anything like that but still a car and carpet is similar in saying and that's exactly what it is in Java and JavaScript. No similarity at all. There is no dependence on Java into JavaScript or JavaScript into Java. It's probably the worst decision of naming it after and from 1995 still, we are making videos and textbooks and writing this that Hey!! there is nothing to do at all and probably for the next few years, we are gonna still do this.

What Is ES6 or ECMAScript

The next big question is, what is es6 Or ECMAScript? This is a kind of standardization now in 1995 Netscape actually created JavaScript. JavaScript is really an old language in 1995 and in that time period programmers were really obsessed with naming everything after coffee and which eventually came as JavaScript. This project was actually created under the name of Mauka, yes programmers were so obsessed with naming everything after coffee then it came on to life-Script and then finally got changed into JavaScript.

So in 1995 Netscape actually started working on a project in data JavaScript finally and release that. Now after that soon people realize that we need standardization of this language so that not every browser and manipulate it based on their needs. So this European computer manufacture association came out and declared standardization for it known as es1 in 1997.

Soon after that the ES2 ES3 and all that came around and in 2009-10 es5 came up with a few good new features which are map and for-each by the way, I just miss that I have actually replicated in 2009-10 twice but it's not in 2009-10 the new features like map and for each thing came up. At the initial level, JavaScript didn't have the concept of even the classes and objects but now we have all of them.


So in 2015 ES6 actually came up and in 2017 the ES7 came up and now already we are having specs of ES8 as well and a lot of new features included. These are the new features but you don't have to worry anything about them at all the things that you can be learning in JavaScript are completely applicable and obviously there will be more versions and that doesn't mean that the previous things are gonna be gone. No, they are not. It's just only about adding of few new features that you can have a language and that pretty much is, all the things that you gonna learn are completely applicable even to the newer version as well and they will be just a few new features that you can pick up on the go and can work with that.