Javascript

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Javascript brings life to websites!

Javascript is a programming language, or more precisely a scripting language, which is executed in the browser.

That means if you load a web page with your Firefox browser, the browser will run the Javascript code embedded in the web page. This allows to implement some program logic on a web page itself instead of having all the logic on the server.

Let us have a look at the usual example of form validation. A form with server side validation means that you submit for example your birthday in a form field and the data is validated on the server. So if you submitted your name instead your birthday you will get the error message only after the page was reloaded from the server.

In such a case Javascript can be used to make things more comfortable. It can check your entered birthday before you hit the submit button and tell you that something is wrong without reloading the page.

Of course there are many more things possible with Javascript then only validating forms. Animations and automatic content refresh are just a few to name. If you have a look at this demo or at gMail and Facebook you get a good idea of what can be achieved with Javascript. Almost everything which is dynamic on those sites is done with Javascript.

If you want to know more about Javascript, have a look at the Servit Tech Newsletter 02.