When I created JavaScript in 1995 at Netscape, I had no definite idea that it would become the most widely used programming language on the Internet. I did know that I had very little time to get it into “minimum viable shipping” state, and so I made it extensible and mutable from global object on down, even to base-level meta-object protocol hooks (e.g., toString and valueOf, styled after Java’s methods of the same names).
Yet in spite of its ongoing evolution and still-rising popularity, JavaScript always benefits from an incremental and careful teaching approach that puts first things first. I think this follows inevitably from the hurried design and intentional extensibility. I overloaded two kernel elements, functions and objects, so that programmers could use them in various ways as general workalikes for individual tools in a larger Swiss army knife. This meant that students would need to learn which tool was best to use for a specific task, and how precisely to wield that particular blade.
Netscape was a whirlwind for me, and I think for anyone there from early 1995 on. It was rushing toward an initial public offering predicated on competing with Microsoft via the infamous “Netscape + Java kills Windows” formula repeated by Marc Andreessen on the IPO roadshow that year. Java was the big-brother or “Batman” programming language to little-brother, “Robin the boy hostage” sidekick “scripting language,” JavaScript.
But I knew while I was writing the first version (code-named “Mocha”) that JavaScript and not Java would be integrated deeply with the Netscape browser and the Document Object Model I created at the same time. There was no way across the Netscape/Sun organizational boundary, or the browser/JVM code bases, to embed Java other than as a plugin.
So I did have a vague sense that JavaScript would either succeed over time and do well, or else fade quickly in the shadow of something else. I remember telling my friend and cubicle-mate Jeff Weinstein, when he asked me what I’d be doing in 20 years, that it would be “JavaScript or bust.” Even then I felt a sense of deep obligation to JavaScript’s users that was inherent in the “two-blade Swiss army knife” design I had chosen under the dual constraints of extremely short schedule and “make it look like Java” management edict.
The Modular JavaScript book series fulfills my hope for an incremental and straightforward pedagogy, starting with easily applicable code examples and scaling through design patterns to entire module-based applications. This series nicely covers best testing practices and winning techniques for deploying JavaScript applications. It is another jewel in O’Reilly’s crown of books on JavaScript.
I am delighted to support Nicolás' endeavor because his book looks exactly like what people who are coming to JavaScript with fresh eyes need. I first met Nicolás at a dinner in Paris and got to know him a bit there, and over time online. His pragmatism combined with empathy for newcomers to the language and a great sense of humor convinced me to review this book in draft form. The finished work is easy to digest and fun. I encourage you to dive in, to discover and embrace JavaScript, and to contribute to developing a better web for everyone.
Brendan Eich, Inventor of JavaScript, CEO and cofounder of Brave Software