Part 1

The JavaScript
language

Ilya Kantor
Built at August 16, 2020

The last version of the tutorial is at https://javascript.info.

We constantly work to improve the tutorial. If you find any mistakes, please write at our
github.
● An introduction
● An Introduction to JavaScript
●
Manuals and specifications
●
Code editors
● Developer console
Here we learn JavaScript, starting from scratch and go on to advanced concepts like OOP.

We concentrate on the language itself here, with the minimum of environment-specific

notes.

An introduction
About the JavaScript language and the environment to develop with it.

An Introduction to JavaScript
Let’s see what’s so special about JavaScript, what we can achieve with it, and which other
technologies play well with it.

What is JavaScript?

JavaScript was initially created to “make web pages alive”.

The programs in this language are called scripts. They can be written right in a web page’s
HTML and run automatically as the page loads.

Scripts are provided and executed as plain text. They don’t need special preparation or
compilation to run.

In this aspect, JavaScript is very different from another language called Java  .

 Why is it called JavaScript?

When JavaScript was created, it initially had another name: “LiveScript”. But Java was
very popular at that time, so it was decided that positioning a new language as a
“younger brother” of Java would help.

But as it evolved, JavaScript became a fully independent language with its own
specification called ECMAScript  , and now it has no relation to Java at all.

Today, JavaScript can execute not only in the browser, but also on the server, or actually on
any device that has a special program called the JavaScript engine  .

The browser has an embedded engine sometimes called a “JavaScript virtual machine”.

Different engines have different “codenames”. For example:

●
V8  – in Chrome and Opera.
●
SpiderMonkey  – in Firefox.
● …There are other codenames like “Trident” and “Chakra” for different versions of IE,
“ChakraCore” for Microsoft Edge, “Nitro” and “SquirrelFish” for Safari, etc.

The terms above are good to remember because they are used in developer articles on the
internet. We’ll use them too. For instance, if “a feature X is supported by V8”, then it
probably works in Chrome and Opera.
  How do engines work?
Engines are complicated. But the basics are easy.

1. The engine (embedded if it’s a browser) reads (“parses”) the script.

2. Then it converts (“compiles”) the script to the machine language.
3. And then the machine code runs, pretty fast.

The engine applies optimizations at each step of the process. It even watches the
compiled script as it runs, analyzes the data that flows through it, and further optimizes
the machine code based on that knowledge.

What can in-browser JavaScript do?

Modern JavaScript is a “safe” programming language. It does not provide low-level access
to memory or CPU, because it was initially created for browsers which do not require it.

JavaScript’s capabilities greatly depend on the environment it’s running in. For instance,
Node.js  supports functions that allow JavaScript to read/write arbitrary files, perform
network requests, etc.
In-browser JavaScript can do everything related to webpage manipulation, interaction with
the user, and the webserver.

For instance, in-browser JavaScript is able to:

● Add new HTML to the page, change the existing content, modify styles.
●
React to user actions, run on mouse clicks, pointer movements, key presses.
● Send requests over the network to remote servers, download and upload files (so-called
AJAX  and COMET  technologies).
●
Get and set cookies, ask questions to the visitor, show messages.
●
Remember the data on the client-side (“local storage”).

What CAN’T in-browser JavaScript do?

JavaScript’s abilities in the browser are limited for the sake of the user’s safety. The aim is
to prevent an evil webpage from accessing private information or harming the user’s data.

Examples of such restrictions include:

● JavaScript on a webpage may not read/write arbitrary files on the hard disk, copy them or
execute programs. It has no direct access to OS functions.
Modern browsers allow it to work with files, but the access is limited and only provided if
the user does certain actions, like “dropping” a file into a browser window or selecting it
via an <input> tag.

There are ways to interact with camera/microphone and other devices, but they require a
user’s explicit permission. So a JavaScript-enabled page may not sneakily enable a web-
camera, observe the surroundings and send the information to the NSA  .
● Different tabs/windows generally do not know about each other. Sometimes they do, for
example when one window uses JavaScript to open the other one. But even in this case,
JavaScript from one page may not access the other if they come from different sites (from
a different domain, protocol or port).

This is called the “Same Origin Policy”. To work around that, both pages must agree for
data exchange and contain a special JavaScript code that handles it. We’ll cover that in
the tutorial.

This limitation is, again, for the user’s safety. A page from http://anysite.com
which a user has opened must not be able to access another browser tab with the URL
http://gmail.com and steal information from there.
● JavaScript can easily communicate over the net to the server where the current page
came from. But its ability to receive data from other sites/domains is crippled. Though
possible, it requires explicit agreement (expressed in HTTP headers) from the remote
side. Once again, that’s a safety limitation.

https://javascript.info

https://javascript.info https://gmail.com

<script>
...
</script>

Such limits do not exist if JavaScript is used outside of the browser, for example on a server.
Modern browsers also allow plugin/extensions which may ask for extended permissions.

What makes JavaScript unique?

There are at least three great things about JavaScript:

● Full integration with HTML/CSS.

● Simple things are done simply.
● Support by all major browsers and enabled by default.
JavaScript is the only browser technology that combines these three things.
That’s what makes JavaScript unique. That’s why it’s the most widespread tool for creating
browser interfaces.
That said, JavaScript also allows to create servers, mobile applications, etc.

Languages “over” JavaScript

The syntax of JavaScript does not suit everyone’s needs. Different people want different
features.
That’s to be expected, because projects and requirements are different for everyone.

So recently a plethora of new languages appeared, which are transpiled (converted) to

JavaScript before they run in the browser.
Modern tools make the transpilation very fast and transparent, actually allowing developers
to code in another language and auto-converting it “under the hood”.
Examples of such languages:
● CoffeeScript  is a “syntactic sugar” for JavaScript. It introduces shorter syntax, allowing
us to write clearer and more precise code. Usually, Ruby devs like it.
● TypeScript  is concentrated on adding “strict data typing” to simplify the development
and support of complex systems. It is developed by Microsoft.
● Flow  also adds data typing, but in a different way. Developed by Facebook.
● Dart  is a standalone language that has its own engine that runs in non-browser
environments (like mobile apps), but also can be transpiled to JavaScript. Developed by
Google.

There are more. Of course, even if we use one of transpiled languages, we should also
know JavaScript to really understand what we’re doing.

Summary
● JavaScript was initially created as a browser-only language, but is now used in many
other environments as well.
● Today, JavaScript has a unique position as the most widely-adopted browser language
with full integration with HTML/CSS.
●
There are many languages that get “transpiled” to JavaScript and provide certain
features. It is recommended to take a look at them, at least briefly, after mastering
JavaScript.

Manuals and specifications

This book is a tutorial. It aims to help you gradually learn the language. But once you’re
familiar with the basics, you’ll need other sources.

Specification

The ECMA-262 specification  contains the most in-depth, detailed and formalized
information about JavaScript. It defines the language.

But being that formalized, it’s difficult to understand at first. So if you need the most
trustworthy source of information about the language details, the specification is the right
place. But it’s not for everyday use.
A new specification version is released every year. In-between these releases, the latest
specification draft is at https://tc39.es/ecma262/  .

To read about new bleeding-edge features, including those that are “almost standard” (so-
called “stage 3”), see proposals at https://github.com/tc39/proposals  .

Also, if you’re in developing for the browser, then there are other specs covered in the
second part of the tutorial.

Manuals
●
MDN (Mozilla) JavaScript Reference is a manual with examples and other information.
It’s great to get in-depth information about individual language functions, methods etc.
One can find it at https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference  .

Although, it’s often best to use an internet search instead. Just use “MDN [term]” in the
query, e.g. https://google.com/search?q=MDN+parseInt  to search for parseInt
function.
●
MSDN – Microsoft manual with a lot of information, including JavaScript (often referred to
as JScript). If one needs something specific to Internet Explorer, better go there:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/  .

Also, we can use an internet search with phrases such as “RegExp MSDN” or “RegExp
MSDN jscript”.

Compatibility tables

JavaScript is a developing language, new features get added regularly.

To see their support among browser-based and other engines, see:
● http://caniuse.com  – per-feature tables of support, e.g. to see which engines support
modern cryptography functions: http://caniuse.com/#feat=cryptography  .
●
https://kangax.github.io/compat-table  – a table with language features and engines
that support those or don’t support.
All these resources are useful in real-life development, as they contain valuable information
about language details, their support etc.
Please remember them (or this page) for the cases when you need in-depth information
about a particular feature.

Code editors
A code editor is the place where programmers spend most of their time.
There are two main types of code editors: IDEs and lightweight editors. Many people use
one tool of each type.

IDE

The term IDE  (Integrated Development Environment) refers to a powerful editor with
many features that usually operates on a “whole project.” As the name suggests, it’s not just
an editor, but a full-scale “development environment.”
An IDE loads the project (which can be many files), allows navigation between files,
provides autocompletion based on the whole project (not just the open file), and integrates
with a version management system (like git  ), a testing environment, and other “project-
level” stuff.
If you haven’t selected an IDE yet, consider the following options:
●
Visual Studio Code  (cross-platform, free).
● WebStorm  (cross-platform, paid).

For Windows, there’s also “Visual Studio”, not to be confused with “Visual Studio Code”.
“Visual Studio” is a paid and mighty Windows-only editor, well-suited for the .NET platform.
It’s also good at JavaScript. There’s also a free version Visual Studio Community  .

Many IDEs are paid, but have a trial period. Their cost is usually negligible compared to a
qualified developer’s salary, so just choose the best one for you.

Lightweight editors

“Lightweight editors” are not as powerful as IDEs, but they’re fast, elegant and simple.

They are mainly used to open and edit a file instantly.

The main difference between a “lightweight editor” and an “IDE” is that an IDE works on a
project-level, so it loads much more data on start, analyzes the project structure if needed
and so on. A lightweight editor is much faster if we need only one file.
In practice, lightweight editors may have a lot of plugins including directory-level syntax
analyzers and autocompleters, so there’s no strict border between a lightweight editor and
an IDE.
The following options deserve your attention:
●
Atom  (cross-platform, free).
● Visual Studio Code  (cross-platform, free).
●
Sublime Text  (cross-platform, shareware).
●
Notepad++  (Windows, free).
●
Vim  and Emacs  are also cool if you know how to use them.

Let’s not argue

The editors in the lists above are those that either I or my friends whom I consider good
developers have been using for a long time and are happy with.
There are other great editors in our big world. Please choose the one you like the most.
The choice of an editor, like any other tool, is individual and depends on your projects,
habits, and personal preferences.

Developer console
Code is prone to errors. You will quite likely make errors… Oh, what am I talking about? You
are absolutely going to make errors, at least if you’re a human, not a robot  .

But in the browser, users don’t see errors by default. So, if something goes wrong in the
script, we won’t see what’s broken and can’t fix it.
To see errors and get a lot of other useful information about scripts, “developer tools” have
been embedded in browsers.
Most developers lean towards Chrome or Firefox for development because those browsers
have the best developer tools. Other browsers also provide developer tools, sometimes with
special features, but are usually playing “catch-up” to Chrome or Firefox. So most
developers have a “favorite” browser and switch to others if a problem is browser-specific.

Developer tools are potent; they have many features. To start, we’ll learn how to open them,
look at errors, and run JavaScript commands.

Google Chrome

Open the page bug.html.

There’s an error in the JavaScript code on it. It’s hidden from a regular visitor’s eyes, so let’s
open developer tools to see it.
Press F12 or, if you’re on Mac, then Cmd+Opt+J .

The developer tools will open on the Console tab by default.

It looks somewhat like this:

The exact look of developer tools depends on your version of Chrome. It changes from time
to time but should be similar.
● Here we can see the red-colored error message. In this case, the script contains an
unknown “lalala” command.
● On the right, there is a clickable link to the source bug.html:12 with the line number
where the error has occurred.

Below the error message, there is a blue > symbol. It marks a “command line” where we
can type JavaScript commands. Press Enter to run them.

Now we can see errors, and that’s enough for a start. We’ll come back to developer tools
later and cover debugging more in-depth in the chapter Debugging in Chrome.

 Multi-line input
Usually, when we put a line of code into the console, and then press Enter , it
executes.
To insert multiple lines, press Shift+Enter . This way one can enter long fragments
of JavaScript code.

Firefox, Edge, and others

Most other browsers use F12 to open developer tools.

The look & feel of them is quite similar. Once you know how to use one of these tools (you
can start with Chrome), you can easily switch to another.

Safari

Safari (Mac browser, not supported by Windows/Linux) is a little bit special here. We need to
enable the “Develop menu” first.
Open Preferences and go to the “Advanced” pane. There’s a checkbox at the bottom:
Now Cmd+Opt+C can toggle the console. Also, note that the new top menu item named
“Develop” has appeared. It has many commands and options.

Summary
● Developer tools allow us to see errors, run commands, examine variables, and much
more.
● They can be opened with F12 for most browsers on Windows. Chrome for Mac needs
Cmd+Opt+J , Safari: Cmd+Opt+C (need to enable first).

Now we have the environment ready. In the next section, we’ll get down to JavaScript.