- JavaScript History
- JavaScript Today
- The Future Of JavaScript
- What Is the Difference Between a Scripting Language and a Programming Language?
- Tools for the JavaScripter!
What Is the Difference Between a Scripting Language and a Programming Language?
You might have heard things in the past like "Oh yes, JavaScript is just like C++," or "JavaScript and Java are just the same thing." Well, in reality, neither of these statements is true. JavaScript is a third-generation language, which means it is a cousin to C, Pascal, and BASIC (if you have difficulty visualizing what this means, don't worry about it!). Similarities do exist, but so do some important differences. Here are a few:
JavaScript is free-formatted. This means that careful formatting is optional.
JavaScript is an interpreted language. This means that it is processed by a separate program on the computer.
JavaScript is highly portable and hardware-independent. This means that, similar to Java, it can run anywhere.
JavaScript embeds easily into other software, like browsers (try doing that with C++!).
What this all means is that if you have some C, C++, Pascal, BASIC, Java, FORTRAN, or Perl experience, you might find that some aspects of JavaScript seem familiar. However, don't expect to be able to create JavaScript using any of themto write JavaScript you have to use JavaScript!