JavaScript is the programming language that makes a website interactive. Slideshows, advertising pop-ups and Google's autocomplete feature are all examples of JavaScript at work. It was first created by Brendan Eich at Netscape in 1995 — nicknamed Mocha during development, released in beta as LiveScript and ultimately named JavaScript in order to piggyback on the popularity of Java (another programming language) for marketing reasons.
At first, developers didn't take JavaScript seriously, because it wasn't seen as a serious development language like Java, Ruby or Python, which are server-side languages. JavaScript was the frosting on the cake, only responsible for user experience. But the language continues to become more prolific, often recommended as a first language to learn for beginners. If you use JavaScript with a framework called Node.js, you can now actually use JavaScript as a server-side language.
