Javascript [Electronic resources] : The Definitive Guide (4th Edition) نسخه متنی

Preface

There have been many changes in the world of web programming with
JavaScript since the third edition of this book was published,
including:

• Second and third editions of the
  ECMA-262 standard have been published,
  updating the core JavaScript language. Conformant versions of
  
  Netscape's JavaScript
  interpreter and Microsoft's JScript interpreter have been
  released.
  




• The source code for Netscape's JavaScript interpreters (one
  written in C and one written in Java) has been released as
  open source and is available to
  anyone who wants to embed a scripting language in his application.
  




• The
  World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has
  published two versions (or levels) of a Document Object Model (DOM)
  standard. Recent browsers support this standard (to varying degrees)
  and allow client-side JavaScript to interact with document content to
  produce sophisticated Dynamic HTML (DHTML) effects. Support for other
  W3C standards, such as HTML 4, CSS1, and CSS2, has also become
  widespread.
  




• The Mozilla organization, using source code originally contributed by
  Netscape, has produced a good fifth-generation browser. At the time
  of this writing, the
  
  
  Mozilla browser is not yet at the 1.0
  release level, but the browser is mature enough that Netscape has
  based its 6.0 and 6.1 browsers upon the Mozilla code base.
  




• 
  Microsoft's Internet Explorer has
  become the overwhelmingly dominant
  
  browser on desktop systems. However,
  the Netscape/Mozilla browser remains relevant to web developers,
  especially because of its superior support for web standards. In
  addition, minor browsers such as Opera (http://www.opera.com) and Konquerer
  (http://www.konqueror.org) should
  be seen as equally relevant.
  




• Web browsers (and JavaScript interpreters) are no longer confined to
  the desktop but have migrated to PDAs and even cell phones.
  

In summary, the core JavaScript language has matured. It has been
standardized and is used in a wider variety of environments than it
was previously. The collapse of Netscape's market share has
allowed the universe of desktop web browsers to expand, and
JavaScript-enabled web browsers have also become available on
non-desktop platforms. There has been a distinct, if not complete,
move toward web standards. The (partial) implementation of the DOM
standard in recent browsers gives web developers a long-awaited
vendor-independent API to which they can code.