JavaScript

JavaScript is a scripting language most often used for client-side web development. It was the originating dialect of the ECMAScript standard. It is a dynamic, weakly typed, prototype-based language with first-class function. JavaScript was influenced by many languages and was designed to look like Java, but be easier for non-programmers to work with. The language is best known for its use in website (as client-side JavaScript) but is also used to enable scripting access to objects embedded in other applications (for example Microsoft Gadgets in the Windows Sidebar). JavaScript, despite the name, is essentially unrelated to the Java programming language though both have the common C syntax, and JavaScript copies many Java names and naming conventions. The language was renamed from LiveScript in a co-marketing deal between Netscape and Sun in exchange for Netscape bundling Sun's Java runtime with their then-dominant browser. The key design principles within JavaScript are inherited... full article at wikipedia