In 1995, a Netscape employee wrote a hack in 10 days that now runs the Internet

Thirty years ago today Netscape Communications and Sun Microsystems published joint press release announcing JavaScript, an object scripting language designed for creating interactive web applications. The language was born out of a frantic 10-day sprint at pioneering browser company Netscape, where engineer Brendan is yours hacked a working internal prototype in May 1995.

Although the JavaScript language did not appear publicly until September and did not reach version 1.0 until March 1996, descendants of Eich's original 10-day hack are now run on approximately 98.9 percent of all websites with client-side code, making JavaScript the dominant programming language on the web. It's insanely popular; In addition to the browser, JavaScript powers server-sides, mobile applications, desktop software, and even some embedded systems. JavaScript is consistently ranked among the most widely used programming languages ​​in the world, according to several surveys.

When Netscape created JavaScript, it wanted to create a scripting language that could make web pages interactive, something lightweight that would appeal to web designers and non-professional programmers. Eich was influenced by several factors: the syntax looked like a fancy new programming language called Java to satisfy Netscape management, but its internals borrowed concepts from Schemea language that Eich admired, and Myselfwhich provided a prototype-based JavaScript object model.

The JavaScript Partnership has received approval from 28 major tech companies, but oddly enough, the December 1995 announcement now reads like an epitaph for the tech industry. Supporting companies included Digital Equipment Corporation (acquired by Compaq, then HP), Silicon Graphics (bankrupt), and Netscape itself (acquired by AOL, liquidated). Sun Microsystems, co-creator of JavaScript and owner of Java, was acquired by Oracle in 2010. JavaScript has outlasted them all.

What's in a name?

The story of creation in 10 days has become software folklore, but even with the grain of truth that we have mentioned, it tends simplify timeline. Eich's sprint resulted in a working demo rather than a finished language, and Netscape continued to refine the design over the next year. Rushed development left JavaScript with oddities and inconsistencies something the developers are still complaining about. In fact, so many changes were expected during the development process that it began to irritate one of the most prominent figures in the industry at the time.