Now at this point, I'd highly suggest you go back to zioth.com. It's a much better page than this one, and it's a lot funnier and more creative. Besides, my babbling can only get worse from here.
I suppose I should explain what JavaScript is, even though a lot of you have some idea already. And by some, I mean none, because we all know that everyone who uses computers these days knows nothing about them. The only people who know about computers are cranberry farmers and goat-milk pasteurizers. You know? I think I just made up a new word.
Oh yeah. I was explaining JavaScript. Well, JavaScript is a scripting language that's kind of like Java. Helpful description, ain't it? Okay, how's about I break that sentence up a bit. First, what's Java? Java is a programming language, like C, C++, Pascal, Fortran, BASIC, COBOL and all those other silly acronyms. You use Java and other programming languages to tell a computer what to do. You see, back in the old days, people had to speak computer language in order to order a computer around. Computer language looks kind of like this:
101111001001000101000100011010010100101010110100100100000011101001111111
Or if you're a fancy programmer who doesn't like ones and zeros, you can exchange them for the ever-popular hexadecimal system:
0xBC9144694AB4903A7F
That simply wouldn't do, so people decided they'd make it a bit more like English. Unfortunately, the people doing this were a particular brand of pseudo-people known as Computer Nerds, so the results of their efforts looked kind of like this:
MOV $2F $10
ADD $4 $1A $10
BEQ $4 $1A tag
SUB $4 $10 $4
tag:
Well, after twenty or thirty years of making programming look more and more like English, Computer Nerds (no doubt with some, but not much, help from ancient linguists and foreign language researchers and deaf, dumb drunks) came up with languages like C++ and Java, which read kind of like this (read it yourself. It's almost like reading fine prose!)
class useless: public Object {
public:
unsigned char addcvtnums(int x, float z) {
return (unsigned char)(sqrt(x)/8U + z*255.0);};
};
Ah, the things you can do with computers these days. Where was I anyway? Oh yeah. JavaScript.
So Java is a programming language. By now, you probably still don't understand what a programming language is, but it really doesn't matter. Just know that it's that thing all the computer nerds do (when they're not downloading porn), and that it's the way they get computers to do what they want. Eventually, they'll use programming languages to help create the robots they'll use to take over the world.
JavaScript is different. Not much different, but different. It's a scripting language, which is kind of a cross between a person and a programming language. Like a person, it can tell a computer what to do, but like a programming language, it's impossible to understand unless you really know what you're doing. It looks like a programming language. It acts like a programming language. It even tastes like a programming language, but it's not, because it can't control the computer directly. It has to tell a real programming language what it's trying to do, and the real programming language tells the computer. Because of that, it's slower, has less control over the computer, and is much more prone to violent acts of malice.
You may ask "why bother with a scripting language when you can use a programming language?" Well, you didn't ask, and you probably never will, so I'll just go ahead and tell you. A scripting language is easier to use. That's about it, and that's not bad. As an extra perk, scripting languages can usually do things that no programming language in its right mind would do, but those are the kinds of things only a Computer Nerd could get excited about, so lets just pretend I never brought up the subject.
JavaScript is a specific scripting language that's used in web pages. Most web pages just use HTML, which is just a bunch of code words that let you lay out text on a page. Computer Nerds want their web pages to do more, so they created JavaScript to help them out. That's basically all it is. I know I built it up a lot, but that's really all there is to it.
The next question, of course, is why I'm bothering to write all this nonsense about JavaScript. That one's easy. You see, I'm a Computer Nerd, and in one of my first Computer Nerd jobs, I wrote JavaScript code. But this wasn't just any JavaScript code; it was some of the more complex JavaScript of its time. I did things with that scripting language that were never meant to be done -- and with good reason.
I like JavaScript. It's powerful and fun. Java Scripts are small, making them easy to download (contrasted with the incredibly slow downloads of Java programs). JavaScript lets you do things automatically on your web page. You know how, sometimes, you have to click on a "submit" button, and then you wait thirty seconds just to be shown a page that tells you you've misspelled your name? With JavaScript, those kinds of things happen instantly. Basically, I like my web pages to be small and fast, and JavaScript lets me do that.
At one point, I had a whole bunch of great JavaScript projects in mind, and I claimed, on this page, that I'd finish all of them very soon. As it turned out, I only finished one unique project that I'm legally allowed to share. It's a fake hits counter. I put a lot of work into it, and I used to be pretty proud of it. The numbers go up at random intervals, making it look somewhat realistic. Even better, the numbers always go up, even if you reload the page. Feel free to take a look. You can put it on your own page if you want, but you'll have to let me know first.
I also have a couple minor projects, which I'll try to post as I
finish them or find them.
Display the date on your web page.
Display a scrolling text-box.