History

• Brendan Eich invented JavaScript, or ECMAScript, in 1996. Netscape Navigator 2.0 was the first application to use it. Since JavaScript's inception, its continuous improvements have helped Web page creators work ever more efficiently.
  
  

Advantages

• JavaScript syntax is similar to Java and C++ programming languages. Web creators integrate JavaScript code with HTML code to add programming features. JavaScripts improve the browsing experience by using cookies and detecting a user's Internet browser, allowing a specially optimized page to be displayed for that particular browser. JavaScript is modular as well, and can either be written from scratch or integrated with existing code.
  
  

Resources

• JavaScript resources include websites that offer tutorials or prewritten (or "canned") scripts. Using existing scripts saves programmers time, since they don't have to write every bit of code from scratch but instead can use existing scripts, customizing them to fit specific pages.
  
  

Uses

• JavaScript's main role is to enhance a Web page. It can be used as an event trigger, for example, performing a certain action on a mouse click. It can also insert dynamic text into HTML pages, and validate input data. JavaScript's ability to deliver client/browser statistics and monitor clicks is also very useful.
  
  

Integration

• JavaScript can be integrated with other Web programming languages such as PHP or HTML or CSS, improving the site users' experience. Also, JavaScript has no client-side requirements, and it works with all major Internet browsers, such as Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Opera and Safari.