As you get started in the world of JavaScript, it's helpful to understand some of the history of this language. It's pretty well known now that JavaScript was developed in May of 1995. By Brandon Brendan Eich. He created JavaScript in about 10 days specifically for the Netscape browser, which was the dominant browser at that time. I read recently, in a book, Brennan, I said that management when they tasked him with creating this language gave him three imperatives. They said, make it look like Java make it easy for beginners, and make it control almost everything in a Netscape browser.
So those were the goals he set out with this. He was creating this language. Now that first one make it look like Java. That's an important one to talk about. The programming language Java and JavaScript are not the same. In fact, they are quite different and sometimes a lot of times actually they get mixed up.
People think that when you say JavaScript, you're talking about Java. And really, they're two separate things. Where JavaScript got its name comes from Java, but that's where a lot of the similarities and Brendan I structured the language. So had some similarities, but it's not the same language by any means. The reason it was called JavaScript was for marketing reasons. Java was very popular at that time, and they wanted to take advantage of that popularity.
Shortly after JavaScript was developed. It was adopted by Microsoft has j script. Now as JavaScript is starting to be used in different browsers, people were concerned about whether the language would would stay the same in each browser. They didn't want it to be different in Microsoft browser, as it was Netscape browser and so they needed some standardization. So the European computer manufacturer associate sociation, or ACMA came out with a standard in 1997. And they named that standard ECMO script one.
It defined what elements language should have. And as long as different browsers or different browser makers stuck to the standard, then people could write JavaScript the same way for each browser. Now it was important that was important in order for JavaScript to take off and become as popular as it is now. Shortly after ACMA script one, ACMA, script two and three were brought out. Then there was quite a pause. They were working on ACMA script four.
And there was a lot of discussion, a lot of disagreement about that. Eventually it was dropped. And in 2009, ACMA script five was released. And shortly thereafter, ACMA script Five dot one ECMAScript five dot one is the standard that most browsers are currently based on. In June of 2015, a new standard ACMA script six came out. Now that standard is not fully adopted by all browsers yet.
However, there are many browsers that have adopted many parts of ACMA script, ACMA script six. During this course, we'll be using some of the things in ACMA script six. As we use those, I will identify them as being part of this standard. You should of course, anything you're doing. Once again test every browser to make sure that it works. But I will mainly be using ACMA script six items that are implemented in most browsers at this point.
Really quick. I like to show you a website that can be used for finding out what is supported as far as ECMAScript six or s six is concerned. You The URL up here you can use go to this site, and you can get an idea of what's accepted or what's been included in browsers. So down the left side are the different elements of the s6 standard. For example, let const those are some things that we'll deal with early in this course. Across the top are the different programs that support JavaScript.
The second set are desktop browsers. So you can see the different browsers iE 11. On the left that Microsoft Edge, there's Firefox, Chrome Safari, you see the browsers it's available there. You can also see that there are other programs that are included. For example, in a previous movie, we talked about node j s, what here's node in the versions of node and what they support as far as ESX is concerned. So the green shows you what is supported, Red indicates only portions are supported.
None at all. So you would find the item on the left, move over to the browser you're interested in and find out if it is supported. And with that snapshot of history, let's move on to the next topic.