Java Reference
In-Depth Information
HTML5
HTML5 is the latest HTML specification, although it is actually more of an umbrella term
for all the latest technologies that are used on the Web. This includes HTML, CSS3 mod-
ules, and lots of APIs that use JavaScript to interact with web pages. These will be covered
in more detail in
Chapter 10
.
HTML5 has proven to be very popular and is emerging as a dominant standard for web
development. JavaScript is a key feature in how some of its more interesting aspects work.
Node.js
In 2009, Ryan Dahl developed Node.js, which allows server-side applications to be written
in JavaScript. It is based on the Google's V8 engine and implements non-blocking input
and outputs in an event-driven environment. This allows the creation of fast and powerful
real-time web applications written exclusively in JavaScript. It has also lead to many ap-
plications and JavaScript libraries that don't use the browser at all. Node JS has proven to
be exceptionally popular and its usage continues to grow. This has increased the interest in
and use of JavaScript as it starts to appear in many environments.
The popularity of Node,js has lead to an interesting development known as
Isomorphic
JavaScript
. This involves having the same JavaScript code that can be run either on the
client- or server-side: if a browser is unable to run the code, it can be run on the server and
downloaded, or if the server is unavailable, the code can be run on the client.
The Future of JavaScript
These are exciting times for JavaScript as it is being used for more and more applications
beyond simply making web pages interactive. A big growth area at the moment is
Single
Page Applications
. These applications run in the browser and rely heavily on JavaScript.
HTML5 games that use JavaScript extensively are also becoming increasingly popular, es-
pecially as the graphical ability of browsers continues to improve.
JavaScript and HTML5 technologies can be used to develop browser extensions, Windows
8 desktop widgets, and Firefox OS and Chrome OS applications. Many non web-related
applications also use JavaScript as their scripting language. It can be used to add interactiv-
ity to PDF documents, create HTML templates (Mustache), interact with a database (Mon-
goDB), and even control robots (Cylon.js)!
