JavaScript is one of the three fundamental technologies that power web applications.
Moreover, if you are a newcomer, you may be asking yourself what the JavaScript programming language is.
Before you start learning to code using JavaScript, it is important you understand its potential uses. This will give you a better sense of whether learning JavaScript is a good investment for you, given your long term career goals and aspirations.
What is JavaScript?
Every time you see a web page that does more than just show content, you can bet there is some JavaScript working in the background.
JavaScript allows you to make a website more interactive, from automatically updating content to creating animate graphics and resizing elements on the web page.
HTML and CSS, the two other languages used to build websites and web applications, allow you to define the structure of a web page and its style, respectively. Moreover, if you want to make a site interactive and add content that updates dynamically, you need to use JavaScript.
What is JavaScript Used For?
Front End Web Development
JavaScript is a fundamental web development technology that can be used to develop both the front and back end of a website.
Using JavaScript, you can add the dynamic features, such as changing text and content and images that resize themselves to a website. These are client-side — or front end, changes, which mean they are seen by the user.
Back End Web Development
You can also use the JavaScript in combination with tools like the Node.js to build the back end of a web application. The back end refers to the behind the scenes code that makes a website work on a web server.
Mobile Applications
Rationally, mobile software development was done using language specific to an operating system like Java for Android and Swift for iOS. Moreover, in recent years, several technologies have been developed that allow you to create mobile applications using the JavaScript programming language.
React Native is one example of these frameworks. It allows you to use JavaScript and React to build an application that runs on a mobile device. PhoneGap, maintained by Adobe, allows you to build mobile apps using web technologies. Vue and Angular are some of the other frameworks you can use for this purpose.
Game Development
JavaScript is used in online games. While there are many limitations around building a browser-based game using JavaScript — JavaScript by itself does not scale very well if you want to build large games — the language is nonetheless often used by game developers to create simple games.
