Java Reference
In-Depth Information
features that linked it to style sheets and the DOM, and also added facilities for the visually
impaired and other unfairly neglected minority interest areas.
In 2004, the W3C was focusing on XHTML 2.0, a specification that many, and perhaps most,
in the web development community thought to be the wrong direction for the web. So another
body, the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG) started working
on HTML5. In 2009, the W3C officially dropped XHTML 2.0, and today the W3C and the
WHATWG work together on developing HTML5.
HTML5 introduces many new features. First are new elements that identify a page's navigation,
header, and footer with the
<nav />
,
<header />
, and
<footer />
elements. It also adds
<audio />
and
<video />
elements to replace
<object />
. HTML5 also removes elements like
<font />
and
<center />
, elements that are purely used for presentation purposes. HTML5 also defines native
support for drag and drop, geolocation, storage, and much more.
Note
The HTML5 specification is not completely finalized, but many of its
individual features are said to be complete. As a result, you'll find many fea-
tures implemented in today's modern browsers. You can visit the W3C web-
http://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/
if
you want to read the actual
specifications.
eCmascript
JavaScript itself followed a trajectory similar to that of HTML. It was first used in Netscape
Navigator and then added to Internet Explorer. The Internet Explorer version of JavaScript was
christened JScript and wasn't far removed from the version of JavaScript found in Netscape
Navigator. However, once again, there were differences between the two implementations and a lot
of care had to be taken in writing script for both browsers.
Oddly enough, it was left to the European Computer Manufacturers Association (ECMA) to
propose a standard specification for JavaScript. This didn't appear until a few versions of JavaScript
had already been released. Unlike HTML, which had been developed from the start with the
W3C consortium, JavaScript was a proprietary creation. This is the reason that it is governed by
a different standards body. Microsoft and Netscape both agreed to use ECMA as the standards
vehicle/debating forum, because of its reputation for fast‐tracking standards and perhaps also
because of its perceived neutrality. The name ECMAScript was chosen so as not to be biased toward
either vendor's creation and also because the “Java” part of JavaScript was a trademark of Sun
licensed to Netscape. The standard, named ECMA‐262, laid down a specification that was roughly
equivalent to the JavaScript 1.1 specification.
That said, the ECMAScript standard covers only core JavaScript features, such as the primitive
data types of numbers, strings, and booleans, native objects like the
Date
,
Array
, and
Math
objects,
and the procedural statements like
for
and
while
loops, and
if
and
else
conditionals. It makes no
reference to client‐side objects or collections, such as
window
,
document
,
forms
,
links
, and
images
.
