What is JavaScript?

JavaScript (JS) is a programming language widely used to develop web-based applications. Since web 1.0 mainly consisted of static, non-interactive websites, Brendan Eich, co-founder of the Mozilla project, worked on developing a programming language that focused on interactivity. He did so by manipulating the logical structure known as the Document Object Model (DOM).

JavaScript was inspired by two other programming languages – Java and Scheme. It took aspects of both languages and incorporated them into the intuitive syntax and toolset.

There are two general paradigms primarily used in programming, both of which JavaScript supports. The first is object-oriented programming. Here, classes and methods interact via objects that represent real-time interrelationships on an instance basis.

The second paradigm, functional programming, does not have the concept of shared state and mutable data. It works on pure functions for problem-solving and relies solely on first-order logic constructs, such as lambda expressions, as well as high-order functions.

The engine is one of the core components in the entire JavaScript ecosystem. It is capable of computing just-in-time (JIT) compilations that comply with computer nodes during execution, save storage space, and positively impact overall productivity.

The JavaScript engine contains two important components – memory heap and call stack. A memory heap is required for memory allocation while a call stack is used to track function calls.

While other programming languages, like C#, are able to run multiple instruction sets at the same time, JavaScript’s engine is a single-threaded language with only one call stack in the engine.

Single-threaded languages like JavaScript are unable to implement parallel programming. However, design engineers have developed asynchronous callbacks to alleviate this limitation.

Asynchronous callbacks allow the engine to take instructions out of the call stack, let them run in the background, and return the final result via the event loop after the asynchronous code is executed. Therefore, JavaScript can run parallel programming even though it’s a single-threaded language.

JavaScript is one of the most popular programming languages due to its strange structure. It can support programming paradigms and has been used in the development of some of the best-known digital technologies. JavaScript is widely used by cloud, AI, and blockchain developers.

JavaScript has been used in the development of blockchain-based cryptocurrencies and applications. With decades of use cases, JavaScript’s ecosystem contains massive quantities of prebuilt UI/UX and front-end development solutions that have been implemented in blockchain-adjacent programming.

Web3.js libraries have been used to link the backend application with Ethereum (ETH) via JavaScript. This helps improve the speed of the development process as the templates can be used instead of having to build everything from the ground up.

The number of ready-made elements means that programmers don’t need to heavily rely on other programming languages like Solidity. JavaScript is one of the core components of lightning apps and the Raiden network, which are two networks built using the Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains respectively.

The universal applicability of JavaScript means that it will likely be utilized widely in further crypto-related projects.