Why is Javascript so Popular ?
A brief explanation of JS popularity
I have found myself in a wide range of conversations where others are asked or mentors are asking me “Why is Javascript important?”. I attended an event in which a senior software engineer at Netflix explained in his own words why Javascript is such a popular language and a sought after skill by employers. Two days later I was asked this question and found difficulty answering it in my own words even though I heard the answer to this same question two days prior. I realized then that I needed to write a blog to express why Javascript is important in my own words.
It is a well-known fact that Javascript skills are a necessary to job seeking developers today. According DevSkiller’s 2021 IT skills report:
75% of companies are looking for JavaScript developers.
Javascript is ingrained in nearly all coding educational curriculums. From schools to bootcamps. For those learning to code today it is more than likely a language that will be learned and a requirement to land a dream role. Why is Javascript so popular?
What is Javascript?
Javascript was a programmed in 1995 by Brandon Eich in just 10 days. It wasn’t taken serious for 10 years until Gmail and Google Maps were created. It allows for complex web application features which evolved static web pages to dynamic sites.
In my own words, Javascript is important because it is the language of the browser, it allows our websites to be dynamic. When I consider myself as an user interacting with Google maps searching for and address and looking around for say a store to buy wine and not show up empty handed- it would be super annoying if zooming out led to a page re-rendering every single time. I don’t think I would have the patience. That’s why Javascript is so popular today, in my own words.
In the words of my mentor a professional software engineer Javascript is important because:
“JS runs in your browser! (To put it technically it runs on the “client”, your browser is a client). JS can be used as a server side language too, that’s what node is, but if u want to execute code in your user’s web browser you have one choice of language — JavaScript! Js is popular because the internet is popular.
And then on top of that it provides a whole bunch of ways to make it easy to to write code that interacts with webpages and user’s doing things on webpages (the DOM, the event loop etc) but the real idea is there’s no other choice (more or less)”
Javascript’s popularity is a simple concept but it’s not a short and simple answer. Or prove me wrong? Leave a comment below addressing why Javascript is such a popular programming language. Explaining the DOM alone requires a different blog post but understanding Javascript features and frameworks would give insight into why it is a favored language in web development.
Cool websites created with JS:
https://www.sbs.com.au/theboat/
Supporting documentation:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/JavaScript/First_steps/What_is_JavaScript
