There is a period time known as Web 2.0, dating back to the early 2000’s. It was a turbulent time. So much so that among the many consequences o

The Gift of Code - The History of the Web

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2024-09-05 14:30:03

There is a period time known as Web 2.0, dating back to the early 2000’s. It was a turbulent time. So much so that among the many consequences of that era was a fissure in HTML standards, when a faction of browser makers split off fromT the W3C to create the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group, also known as the WHATWG. It’s stated objective was to bring HTML closer to the needs of real web applications, an effort that would eventually lead to HTML5 and the HTML living standard.

This was a time of innovation. Websites transformed by AJAX. Web applications made to replicate the look and feel of desktop programs. HTML that, once rendered, updated and animated. Dynamic HTML, as it was once known.

And yet JavaScript—the engine behind this innovation, the language that made it all possible—hardly advanced at all. An updated version of Javascript hadn’t been released since 1999, when the JavaScript standards body Ecma International released the specification for ECMAScript 3, an offshoot and standardized version of the Javascript language

As the browsers wars raged overhead, and the dot-com bubble burst, individuals and organizations that participated in Ecma had come up with theoretical drafts and new designs. There were new features to be added, language enhancements that had been forgotten in the rushed implementation of JavaScript’s first version. Inside of Ecma, it was known as ECMAScript 4. But others in the web community had started grouping these new ideas and features under the moniker JavaScript 2.