JavaScript

Below is an excerpt from an essay I wrote recently:

It has been hard to ignore the major changes on the Internet in the past few years. The phrase “Web 2.0” has become the inherent moniker for this development, and while the meaning of the phrase has become convoluted, it ultimately represents a major departure from the Internet of five or ten years ago. I believe we are in the middle of one of the most interesting and influential periods in the history of the web.

The poster children for this generation are sites like Facebook, Wikipedia, and Google Maps. These and other groundbreaking sites provide rich user experiences traditionally reserved for the desktop environment. Web 2.0 is often characterized by the simplistic approach that developers have taken in both the markup of their applications, as well as the user interaction, which is constantly achieving a more desktop-like look and feel. However, what really makes this progress so impressive is the fact that most of the technology that drives these sites (HTML and JavaScript) has been in wide use for the past ten years.

While the rest of the computer industry has seen some tremendous progress in the past decade as well, these developments have been highly influenced by the improvement and introduction of new technology, not the revitalization of old. Many of the eye-catching visual effects typically associated with Web 2.0 also capitalize on greater processing capacity as well as greater broadband proliferation; however, the roots of Web 2.0 – increased user-interactivity and useful data manipulation and presentation – exist regardless of the glitz and glam.

Beyond the effect that the Web 2.0 revolution has had on users, it has also allowed a new generation of entrepreneurs to make their mark on the technology world. The majority of successful online businesses from the past decade have been online retailers. Amazon.com and eBay certainly come to mind. While these companies are still heavyweights in today’s online economy, the past few years have seen a tremendous influx in the number of firms who focus on information aggregation, interpretation and presentation. Fueled to a large extent by the popularization of blogs, companies such as MyBlogLog, del.icio.us and FeedBurner have been able to achieve great success by offering a tightly-honed service, breaking away from the long-tailed approach used by the Internet giants of the 90’s.

It’s nothing revolutionary or groundbreaking - I’d assume that most have noticed the same changes and trends. However, what really made me sit back and think “wow” is how the prevailing attitude towards JavaScript has been so drastically altered over the past several years.

I remember working on some of our first sites here at NPL Solutions, being terrified of using “big bad JavaScript” due to its poor adoption rate. Now it’s hard do to much of anything on the Internet without having JavaScript enabled, which has been a godsend to developers.

It reminds me of the cliché, “if you build it, they will come”. The introduction of compelling services which require JavaScript has been the driving force to so radically change the world’s perception of this technology - not a paradigm shift from perspective of the user.

So here’s to another decade of under-appreciated technology, and another decade after that where we will finally be able to see its true potential.