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Introduction to JavaScript JavaScript is a scripting language that allows you to embed commands in an XHTML page. Basically, all browsers on the market today are compatible with JavaScript but there was a time when you needed Netscape Navigator 2 or higher or Internet Explorer 3 or higher before you were able to see JavaScript results. Those are the days that us old timers remember. I have been on the Internet now for about 10 years, so them are olden days to me. Back then, the Internet was very much different from what it is today. Layout was pretty simple mostly just centered text running straight down the page, graphics and all. You can trigger the commands that JavaScript responds to by a number of means, such as running your mouse over a certain item can change the image or text that is displayed their, it can read data that is entered into a form and e-mail the information to you or notify you that someone has sign-up up or filled out your form. These are just a few of the things that you can accomplish by using JavaScript. We will explore much more in out studies here along with examples. Ok, we are going to get down to some serious learning of the JavaScripting language. Again, I hope to make this as easy as I can with both good explanations and examples of all the code as we go along. Remember if you have any troubles, or want to ask some questions, I do have a help forum set-up were we all can hangout and expand of what we learn from the site here. You can jump to the forum and signup or take a look around by just Clicking Here. So lets get down to business now and learn some JavaScipting! The first and mostly asked question to start out with is. What does JavaScript look like? JavaScript is a Scripting language that is embedded into your XHTML document usually in the <head></head> area and is enclosed in the <script></script> tags. The <script> element takes the attributes language, which specifies the scripting language to use when evaluating the script, the type attribute used to specify the script type, and src, which can be used to specify the location where the browser can find the javascript code if it is located somewhere other than in the current document. JavaScript itself looks like many other computer languages such as C/C++. The difference between C/C++ and JavaScript is that C/C++ is a compiled language meaning that you need a compiler to compile the code into a language the computer can understand and that would be machine language. Whereas JavaScript is a scripting language, hense the suffix "script". Java is the root word in JavaScript, and Java by-itself is a compiled language but that is another lesson and doesn't relate to what we are learning here. JavaScript is much easier to learn that regular Java but after learning JavaScript this will give you a head start into picking up Java pretty guick. |
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