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Coding for Beginners: JavaScript

Written by Ashley Coles, 9 January 2023

Coding for Beginners: JavaScript
If HTML is the foundations and frame of a building, and CSS is the paint and decoration, then JavaScript is the electrical system and plumbing.

Core Languages of the Web

In the first two parts of this series, we’ve explored two of the fundamental programming languages used for building web pages: HTML and CSS. Now it’s time to look at the final member of the trio: JavaScript.

What is JavaScript?

If HTML is like the foundations and frame of a building, and CSS is the paint and decoration, then JavaScript (or JS for short) is the electrical system, the plumbing, and the lighting. It is the language that allows us to make our web pages interactive for users.

You’ll have seen JavaScript all over the websites you browse every day, even if you weren’t aware of it. Some classic examples of the interactivity JavaScript provides are:

  • Sliding mobile menus
  • Animated image sliders
  • Infinite scrolling product pages
Coding for Beginners: JavaScript 1
Learning JavaScript is a great way to elevate your skills beyond the basics and add additional functionality to websites.

Who created JavaScript?

JavaScript was created in 1995 by a single person, Brandon Eich, in just 10 days! At the time he was working for a company called Netscape (some of you may remember them) at a pivotal time in the history of the internet.

Netscape and Microsoft were engaged in the ‘browser wars’; a battle for dominance in the newly emerging browser market between the two companies’ web browsers: Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer. JavaScript was created to give Netscape’s customers a language they could use to add interactive elements to their websites.

Originally, the language was named Mocha but it was later renamed JavaScript after Netscape and Sun (the company behind the Java language) created a licence agreement. Some also claim that the choice to name the language JavaScript was an attempt to capitalise on attention from the gigantic marketing campaign of the Java language.

It may have been a shrewd marketing move but the name change has created plenty of confusion over the years. To be clear, Java and JavaScript are not the same. Java is not short for JavaScript! In fact, the two languages could not be more different if they tried.

Should I learn JavaScript?

Yes! Learning JavaScript is a great way to elevate your skills beyond the basics and add additional functionality and individuality to website designs. It can also open the door to a whole world of other possibilities in more advanced software engineering, such as game development.

If you’re curious about coding and want to find out more, including how to build websites using HTML, CSS and JavaScript, check out our Coding Quick Start short course.

Further Reading