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Java™ developers have historically perceived JavaScript as a toy
language, both too lightweight for real programming and too clunky to be of use as a
scripting alternative. And yet JavaScript is still around, and it's the basis of
exciting web technologies like GWT and Node.js. In this installment of
Java
development 2.0, Andrew Glover explains why JavaScript is
an important tool for the modern Java developer. He then gets you
started with the syntax you need to build first-class applications for
today's web, including JavaScript variables, types, functions, and
classes.
Back in the early days of the Java platform, it wasn't unusual for
journalists, and even occasionally newbie programmers, to confuse
JavaScript and the Java language. Both languages were popularized due to
their applicability to web programming, after all, and for a few years
they ran neck-and-neck in the popular imagination. Most people today
differentiate the two languages, but it's still common for Java
developers to deride JavaScript as a toy language, not even fit for
scripting. The thing is, JavaScript (much like the Java language) has
lived on, and even evolved. It's the basis of client-side programming
techniques like Ajax and server-side efforts like Node.js, and its
importance for mobile application development is beginning to emerge.
It's also the language that Java code compiles to in the very popular
Google Web Toolkit, or GWT.
more...