JAVA SCRIPT

JavaScript is a very powerful client-side scripting language, introduced to “make webpages alive”. This allows us to create dynamic content for the web. JavaScript is a lightweight language that is open-source and allows cross-platform. It doesn’t require compilation and is interpreted with object-oriented capabilities. Also, it works with various other programming languages. And this is the reason for its vast use all around the world. Many popular websites and web applications like Google, Amazon, PayPal, etc use this language. The file extension of a JavaScript file is .js.

Pros-

1. Speed

Since JavaScript is an ‘interpreted’ language, it reduces the time required by other programming languages like Java for compilation. JavaScript is also a client-side script, speeding up the execution of the program as it saves the time required to connect to the server.

2. Simplicity

JavaScript is easy to understand and learn. The structure is simple for the users as well as the developers. It is also very feasible to implement, saving developers a lot of money for developing dynamic content for the web.

3. Popularity

Since all modern browsers support JavaScript, it is seen almost everywhere. All the famous companies use JavaScript as a tool including Google, Amazon, PayPal, etc.

4. Interoperability

JavaScript works perfect with other programming languages and therefore numerous developers prefer it in developing many applications. We can embed it into any webpage or inside the script of another programming language.

5. Server Load

As JavaScript operates on the client-side, data validation is possible on the browser itself rather than sending it off to the server. In case of any discrepancy, the whole website needs not to be reloaded. The browser updates only the selected segment of the page.

6. Rich Interfaces

JavaScript provides various interfaces to developers for creating catchy webpages. Drag and drop components or sliders may give a rich interface to the webpages. This leads to improved user-interactivity on the webpage.

7. Extended Functionality

Third-party add-ons like Greasemonkey (a Mozilla Firefox extension) allow the developers to add snippets of predefined code in their code to save time and money. These add-ons help the developers build JavaScript applications a lot faster and with much more ease than other programming languages.

8. Versatility

JavaScript is now capable of front-end as well as back-end development. Back-end development uses NodeJS while many libraries help in front-end development like AngularJS, ReactJS, etc.

Cons-

1. Client-side Security

Since the JavaScript code is viewable to the user, others may use it for malicious purposes. These practices may include using the source code without authentication. Also, it is very easy to place some code into the site that compromises the security of data over the website.

2. Browser Support

The browser interprets JavaScript differently in different browsers. Thus, the code must be run on various platforms before publishing. The older browsers don’t support some new functions and we need to check them as well.

3. Lack of Debugging Facility

Though some HTML editors support debugging, it is not as efficient as other editors like C/C++ editors. Also, as the browser doesn’t show any error, it is difficult for the developer to detect the problem.

4. Single Inheritance

JavaScript only supports single inheritance and not multiple inheritance. Some programs may require this object-oriented lang

5. Sluggish Bitwise Function

JavaScript stores a number as a 64-bit floating-point number and operators operate on 32-bit bitwise operands. Thus, JavaScript converts the number to 32-bits signed integers, operates on them and converts them back to 64-bits JavaScript numbers. This continuous conversion takes more time in conversion of number to an integer. This increases the time needed to run the script and reduces its speed.

6. Rendering Stopped

A single code error can stop the rendering of the entire JavaScript code on the website. To the user, it looks as if JavaScript was not present. However, the browsers are extremely tolerant of these errors.

Usages-

1. Web Development

JavaScript is a client scripting language which is used for creating web pages. It is a standalone language developed in Netscape. It is used when a webpage is to be made dynamic and add special effects on pages like rollover, roll out and many types of graphics. It is mostly used by all websites for the purpose of validation. In addition to validations, it supports external applications like PDF documents, running widgets, supporting for flash applications etc. It can also load content into a document whenever the user requires it without even reloading the entire page.

2. Web Applications

With technology browsers and personal computers have improved to the extent that a language was required to create robust web applications. When a user explores a map in Google Maps then the user just needs to click and drag the mouse. All detailed view is visible by just a click. This is possible due to JavaScript. It interacts with the browser without sending messages to and fro to the servers. JavaScript uses Application Programming Interfaces(APIs) that provide extra powers to the code.

3. Presentations

JavaScript also provides the facility of creating presentations as a website. JavaScript provides RevealJS and BespokeJS libraries to build a web-based slide deck. Reveal.js creates some of the most beautiful and interactive decks using HTML. A user can easily insert nested slides. Even if the user is not aware of programming language then they can easily build a site with so much help online. These presentations are touch optimized and work great with mobile devices, phones, and tablets. With all this JavaScript also provides different transition styles, themes, and slide backgrounds. It supports all CSS color formats. JavaScript also provides Bespoke.js plugin with a wide variety of features. These include responsive scaling, animated bullet lists, and syntax highlighting for code examples. It provides themes which are polished and not too flashy. The quickest way to start Bespoke.js is using a generator. It allows the user to set titles to your presentation and go through a set of questions to get the plugins required.

4. Server Applications

Node JS is built on Chrome’s Javascript runtime for building fast and scalable network applications. It uses event-driven, lightweight and efficient applications which are to be distributed over the systems with the help of a server. Javascript is used to handle HTTP requests and generate contents. When a user is writing thick applications in JavaScript on the client then a user may even write the logic in JavaScript on the server so that cognitive leaps can be done from one language to the other.

5. Web Servers

Using Node JS a web server can be created. The advantages of Node JS are that it is event-driven and would not wait for the response of the previous call. It moves to the next call and takes advantage of events to get notifications when a response is received for a previous call. The servers built on Node JS are very fast and do not use buffering and transfers chunks of data. In addition to this, it is single threaded with event looping which is used in a non-blocking way. The HTTP module can help in creating a server by using the createServer() method. This method is executed whenever someone tries to access port 8080. In response to this, the HTTP server should display HTML and should be included in HTTP header. It can be installed easily by typing ‘npm install -g http-server’ and it can be started by typing http-server command.

6. Games

Not only websites but uses of JavaScript also helps in creating games for leisure. The combination of JavaScript and HTML5 makes JavaScript popular in games development as well. It provides the Ease JS library which provides simple solutions for working with rich graphics. It also has an API that is familiar to all flash developers with a hierarchical display list. A user can create a Stage and it will render the display list to its target canvas. Ease JS also has 2D bitmaps called Sprites which are drawn directly to render the target for transformations.

7. Art

Using the HTML5 in JavaScript drawing graphics on a web page has become easier. All two and three-dimensional shapes can be easily drawn on a canvas and this has opened the browser as a new medium for all different digital art projects. A canvas has no border and no content and hence lets the user create his own art.

8. Smartwatch Applications

Javascript being the most used language is because it is being used in all possible devices and applications. Uses of JavaScript provides a library Pebble JS which is used in smartwatch applications. This framework works for applications that require the internet for its functioning. Using Pebbles allows a developer to create an application for a number of watches using JavaScript.

9. Mobile Applications

The most important thing that can be done by the uses of JavaScript is building applications without web contexts. Mobiles being mostly available in Apple and Android two different languages are used to build these. It should be possible to write once and use it on both platforms of these devices. PhoneGap is the framework which enables this. Also recently we have React Native that serves this purpose. It is the major player in cross-platform changes and deployments. Hence uses of Javascript can be used to deploy and download the respective applications across cross environments.

10. Flying Robots

Yes, even this is the field that is not left untouched by JavaScript.Using Node Js a user can program a flying robot.

Alternatives:

1. DART

Dart is an object-oriented C-like language Google built in an attempt to replace JavaScript. Dart is statically-typed, meaning that it eliminates some of the most common error sources in JS code. It supports type inference which is a big plus.

Still, one of the most beneficial features of this JS alternative lies in the fact that it allows you to go beyond client-side development and create standalone applications. With Google’s UI toolkit, it’s possible to build native web, desktop, and mobile apps. However, being new to programmers and not so frequently used in the market, Dart offers limited online resources, meaning that you can’t easily find a solution once you bump into problems.

2. TYPESCRIPT

Developed by Microsoft, TypeScript is actually more like a superset of JavaScript meaning that it basically adds new methods, improves and modernizes the existing JS features, and removes its certain limitations, and most importantly adds optional static typing. In other words, after being compiled to JS, apps written in TypeScript can be viewed in almost any browser.

For example, Angular.js is built entirely in TypeScript.

Another plus of this JS alternative is that it’s compatible with Node.js.

However, the community is smaller and coding in TypeScript requires more time.

3. KAFFEINE

Kaffeine is actually a set of extensions to the JavaScript syntax intended to make certain tasks much easier. For example, it helps front-end devs with JavaScript’s callback functions given that it supports asynchronous operations.

With Kaffeine, the process of debugging is much simpler, and besides being easy on developers, this JS extension is also beneficial for the end-user as the browser doesn’t freeze which means that user experience is smooth.

Again, a much smaller community and the lack of resources make this programming language a bit obscure.

4. ELM

Elm is a statically typed functional language that bears more similarity to Haskell than C, but unlike the former, it doesn’t leave developers scratching their heads over its complexity.

It differs from JavaScript mainly because it’s not a general-purpose language, but a solution which will provide advanced front-end web app development experience.

While coding in Elm, developers get immediate notifications when an error occurs so that they can fix it in a timely manner, which prevents numerous bugs in the later development stages. The tagline that this program uses is “no runtime exceptions in practice” which basically means that if an app written in Elm starts running at all, it will be unlikely to crash.

Some of its downsides include the lack of server-side, a steeper learning curve, and the fact that it’s missing some of the higher-level capabilities.

5. COFFEESCRIPT

CoffeeScript is said to improve the readability of the original language as well as simplify code and make it shorter. Its compatibility with Node.js is another advantage.

However, it’s important to mention that developers who want to use CoffeeScript still need to be prolific in JavaScript. One of its main disadvantages is a limited set of features as well as the fact that JavaScript released its ES6 version upgrade which practically rendered CoffeeScript redundant (this upgrade accelerated JavaScript and made it almost as fast as CoffeeScript).