ECMAScript

Scripting language introduced by the Netscape corporation in 1996 as JavaScript. EMCAScript is a loosely LISP inspired tool and despite its enormous popularity is considered one of the worst designed programming languages to ever escape into the wild and the only such horror story to gain any popularity since PEARL. The classic example of how little forethought was used when cobbling the language together is that despite being released just over three years before the 1999/2000 turnover the first versions of the language were not year 2000 ready, resulting in a few set-top Internet access boxes that used Netscape starting to have odd failures on some webpages in 2000 despite being less than 2 years old.

It is possible to use EMCAScript as a tool to develop OS/2 desktop or even command-line applications, but due to the high number of problems with the current implementations you are advised not to do so unless compatibility with web based applications is a high priority. If you choose to use it it is recommended that you use an abstraction level like Microsoft Typescript.

The name JavaScript is an attempt to leech onto the hype that surrounded Java at the time the language was released but EMCAScript has no connection with Java at all, 1996 really was the year of Java and there were lots of tools that added Java to their name and the fledging Linux operating system started to use a penguin as its mascot in the same year, aping "Duke" the penguin Java mascot that seemed to be virtually everywhere at the time .