JavaScript can run both client- and server-side, which inherently means that the use cases for using JavaScript versus Python will vary. From humble beginnings, JavaScript, with its quirks, strengths, and limitations, is now one of the main pillars of the interactive web as we know it, from powering rich frontend interactions, to web servers. How did it become one of the most important ubiquitous technologies of the web? In order to grasp JavaScript's powerful ability to add functionality to both the front- and backends, we first need an understanding of what the frontend is—and what it isn't. Having an understanding of JavaScript's origins helps to clarify the "why" of JavaScript, so let's take a look.
The following topics will be covered in this chapter:
- The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) and the need for interactivity
- Early web browsers and a 10-day prototype
- Enter Ecma International
- HTML, CSS, and JavaScript—the best friends of the frontend
- How JavaScript fits into the frontend ecosystem
