JavaScript evolution to follow Python, creator says

13.05.2006

New competition in browsers, from Mozilla's Firefox specifically, has prompted efforts to improve JavaScript. Macromedia's work on ActionScript also was a factor, Eich said.

"Why the long freeze in JavaScript development? A lot of it had to do with the long freeze on browsers due to the IE [Internet Explorer] takeover," Eich said.

Eich noted JavaScript's ability to program browsers. "The way you program things that weren't hardwired into browsers like HTML is with JavaScript."

"More and more people are just using JavaScript because it's certainly fast enough and it's powerful enough now with help from all the surrounding APIs that are in browsers," said Eich.

"I think there is an important point to make here and that is that you can argue stagnation was good on the browser side," Eich said. This enabled work on the server side and development of good frameworks for server content. But that time is past.