A Fascinating and Messy History of the Web and JavaScript

The history of the World Wide Web and JavaScript is a wild, fascinating, and sometimes messy journey filled with innovation, competition, and controversy. It‘s a story of how a simple idea to share information on the internet evolved into the most ubiquitous and influential software platform ever created.

The Birth of the Web

Our journey begins in 1989 at the CERN research lab in Switzerland. This is where computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee first proposed the idea of a global hypertext system that could link documents across computers anywhere in the world. He called it the "WorldWideWeb."

In 1990, Berners-Lee created the first web browser, called "WorldWideWeb," and the first web server, both of which ran on a NeXT computer at CERN. He also wrote the first versions of HTML (HyperText Markup Language), to create and structure web pages, and HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol), to communicate between browsers and servers.

The first web page was published in 1991 at the URL http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html. It explained the World Wide Web project and how to use a browser and set up a web server.

These early web pages were very basic – just text and links, with no images, layout, styling, or interactive elements. The web was initially intended for sharing static documents and information, primarily within the scientific community.

The Rise of the Graphical Browser

The next major milestone in the web‘s development was the release of the Mosaic browser in 1993. Developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Mosaic was the first widely-used graphical web browser.

Mosaic expanded the web‘s appeal and accessibility by supporting images and clickable links. It used the <img> tag to embed images within web pages, rather than opening them in a separate window.

After the release of Mosaic, web usage and the number of web servers grew rapidly. From around 500 known web servers in 1993, the number would grow to over 10,000 by the end of 1994.

Building on the Mosaic source code, Marc Andreessen and Jim Clark founded Netscape and released Netscape Navigator in December 1994. Navigator quickly became the dominant web browser, with a market share of over 90% by the mid-1990s.

The Birth of JavaScript

1995 was a pivotal year in web history, as it marked the introduction of JavaScript. Netscape recruited Brendan Eich to embed the Scheme programming language into Navigator. But due to business and marketing pressures, the language that Eich created in May 1995 was instead based on Java syntax, with some influence from Scheme, Self, and Perl.

The first version of JavaScript was written in just 10 days. It was initially called Mocha, then LiveScript, before finally being renamed to JavaScript for the release of Netscape Navigator 2.0 in September 1995. This name has caused confusion ever since, as JavaScript has no direct relation to the Java programming language.

JavaScript brought interactivity and programming capabilities to web pages. Early uses included form validation, image rollovers, and displaying prompts and alerts to users. Although fairly primitive by today‘s standards, JavaScript opened up a whole new realm of possibilities for the web.

In November 1996, Netscape submitted JavaScript to the Ecma International standards organization. The standardized version was called ECMAScript, and the first edition was released in June 1997.

The Browser Wars and Web Standards

The late 1990s saw rapid advancements in the web amid fierce competition between Netscape and Microsoft, in what became known as the "browser wars." Each vendor released new versions of their browsers at a rapid pace, often introducing new HTML tags and JavaScript APIs.

Some of these new features, like the <blink> tag and the <marquee> tag, provided little value to users and developers. Others, like the DOM (Document Object Model) and Dynamic HTML, laid the groundwork for more interactive and responsive web pages.

As the leader in the browser market, Netscape was able to push forward its own vision for the web. But Microsoft began to gain ground with the release of Internet Explorer 4 in 1997, which introduced CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) for easier web page styling and DHTML capabilities that matched or exceeded Navigator.

With Internet Explorer 5‘s release in 1999, Microsoft had taken over the majority of the browser market share. Netscape was acquired by AOL and was unable to keep up with the pace of development.

Amid the intense competition, web developers faced increasing difficulty in writing code that would work reliably across different browsers. Each vendor implemented features differently, and there was little regard for cross-browser compatibility.

Recognizing the need for web standards, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) was founded in 1994 by Tim Berners-Lee. The W3C brought together browser vendors, web developers, and other stakeholders to create open standards for the web, including HTML, CSS, and the DOM.

The Dot-Com Boom and Bust

The late 1990s also saw the rise of the dot-com bubble, a period of excessive speculation and investment in internet-based companies. Valuations for internet startups reached dizzying heights, often without any proven business model or path to profitability.

Investors were eager to fund any company with a ".com" in its name. Between 1995 and 2000, the Nasdaq Composite stock market index rose 400%.

Many of these companies were web-based and depended on advertising revenue. They spent lavishly on marketing and customer acquisition, betting on continued growth and future profitability.

However, by 2000 it became clear that many of these companies were grossly overvalued. The Nasdaq peaked in March 2000 and then fell sharply, losing 78% of its value by October 2002.

The dot-com crash caused the failure of many web-based companies and led to a significant slowdown in the web industry. It would take years for the market and the industry to recover.

Web 2.0 and the Rise of Applications

After the dot-com crash, the web industry regrouped and began a new phase of innovation and growth known as Web 2.0. This era was marked by the rise of web applications, social networking, user-generated content, and collaboration.

Key developments in Web 2.0 included:

• Blogging platforms like Blogger (1999) and WordPress (2003)
• Wiki software like MediaWiki (2002), which powered sites like Wikipedia
• Social networks like Friendster (2002), Myspace (2003), and Facebook (2004)
• Media sharing sites like Flickr (2004) and YouTube (2005)
• Web application frameworks and libraries like Ruby on Rails (2004), Django (2005), and jQuery (2006)

Many of these Web 2.0 sites and applications relied heavily on JavaScript and AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) to provide rich, interactive user experiences. AJAX, a term coined by Jesse James Garrett in 2005, described a set of technologies that enabled web pages to send and retrieve data from a server asynchronously, leading to much more responsive interfaces.

Some influential AJAX-based applications included:

• Google Maps (2005)
• Google Suggest (2004), the first major use of AJAX to create a "type ahead" search suggestion feature
• Gmail (2004), one of the first popular web-based email services to use AJAX extensively

The Ascent of JavaScript

With the rise of AJAX and Web 2.0, JavaScript became an increasingly important part of the web technology stack. Developers pushed the limits of what was possible with the language, and browsers competed to offer better JavaScript performance.

However, JavaScript development at this time could be cumbersome, due to inconsistencies between browsers and the verbosity of the language. This led to the creation of many libraries aimed at abstracting browser differences and providing more convenient and expressive ways to write JavaScript.

Some of the most popular JavaScript libraries included:

• Prototype (2005), which pioneered the concept of the "DOM ready" event
• script.aculo.us (2005), a UI and animation library built on top of Prototype
• Dojo Toolkit (2005), a modular library for building large-scale web applications
• MooTools (2006), a compact, object-oriented JavaScript library
• jQuery (2006), which became the most widely used JavaScript library, known for its "write less, do more" philosophy

In 2008, Google released the Chrome browser, which included the V8 JavaScript engine. V8 was a major breakthrough in JavaScript performance, using techniques like just-in-time compilation to significantly speed up code execution. Other browser vendors quickly followed suit with their own improved JavaScript engines.

These advancements in JavaScript performance, along with the continued evolution of web standards like HTML5 and CSS3, set the stage for a new era of complex web applications.

The Modern Web

The 2010s saw the web platform continue to evolve and expand in scope. The proliferation of powerful smartphones and tablets brought new challenges and opportunities to the web.

Responsive web design, a term coined by Ethan Marcotte in 2010, became a best practice for building websites that could adapt to different screen sizes and devices. Using techniques like fluid grids, flexible images, and media queries, developers could create a single website that would work well on desktops, tablets, and smartphones.

The rise of mobile also led to an emphasis on performance and speed. Google introduced the Chrome Developer Tools in 2010, which helped developers diagnose performance issues and optimize their sites. In 2015, Google announced that mobile-friendliness would be a ranking factor in its search algorithms, further emphasizing the importance of mobile optimization.

The 2010s also saw the rise of front-end frameworks and libraries that made it easier to build complex, interactive applications. Some of the most notable include:

• AngularJS (2010), developed by Google, which popularized the concept of two-way data binding
• Backbone.js (2010), which brought more structure to client-side applications with models, views, and collections
• Ember.js (2011), an ambitious framework for building large-scale web apps
• React (2013), developed by Facebook, which popularized a component-based architecture and a virtual DOM for efficient rendering
• Vue.js (2014), a progressive framework that combines the best ideas from Angular and React

On the back-end, Node.js (2009) brought JavaScript to the server, enabling developers to use the same language on both the front-end and back-end. This led to the rise of "isomorphic" or "universal" JavaScript applications, where the same code could run on both the server and the client.

The 2010s also saw a massive increase in the use of open-source software and collaboration within the JavaScript community. Sites like GitHub (2008) and npm (2010) made it easy for developers to share, discover, and use open-source code packages.

Today, the web is a massive platform with incredible reach and diversity. It faces challenges of accessibility, performance, security, and user privacy. But it also has an unparalleled ability to connect people, share information, and enable new kinds of interactions and experiences.

As a full-stack web developer in 2023, it‘s humbling and inspiring to look back on how far the web has come. From static documents to dynamic applications, from simple styling to responsive layouts, from server-side rendering to client-side frameworks, the web has undergone a remarkable evolution.

Understanding this history can inform how we approach web development today. It can make us appreciate the lessons learned and the progress made by those who came before us. At the same time, it underscores that the web is still young and there is still so much potential for innovation.

The story of the web is one of continuous change and adaptation. As developers, we have the privilege and the challenge of helping to write the next chapters of this story. By learning from the past, focusing on fundamentals, and embracing the ever-changing nature of the web platform, we can help to steer it in a positive direction – one that is open, accessible, and empowering for all.