The origin of JavaScript from the opensource

Do you guys remember? There was predecessor to C language.

Easy to Guess its name was B. Does B ring a bell?

B and C both were developed at Bell Labs by different persons.

B was created or in computer world, developed by Kenneth Lane Thompson and C was developed by none other than Dennis Ritchie.

Now, to know Why C was created we must understand Why B was created.

You might think why I bother about history of the creation of C being a web developer? And why are you reading about C when you came here for JS.

I would say continue reading, and you are on the right track.

B Cause?

You probably heard about Unix. It’s an operating system and it’s still used till this day. Given it was developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s it’s going well.

Unix was again developed at Bell Labs by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie along with some more of their colleagues.

Ken Thompson initially started developing B to port the Unix operating system to a DEC PDP-7 minicomputer.

The earlier version of Unix, called Unics (later renamed to Unix), was written in assembly language, which made it difficult to port to different hardware platforms. Thompson wanted to create a higher-level language that could be used to rewrite Unix and make it more portable across different systems.

What can you C?

Now, we know the reason why B came into existence, we are not that far from unraveling the mystery behind the need of a successor to it.

B was created as a successor to the BCPL (Basic Combined Programming Language) programming language, with the goal of enabling the porting of Unix to different computer architectures. But it still had limitations that made it challenging to port Unix.

The B language was tightly coupled to the underlying machine architecture and lacked some features necessary for portability, such as data typing and more advanced memory management capabilities. These limitations prompted the development of C, which was designed to be even more portable and provide better control over hardware while maintaining a higher level of abstraction.

C introduced more data types, pointers, and many other features that made it widely adopted.

The Origin of JavaScript

It’s finally time to understand the purpose of JavaScript birth. Like C came into existence to improve B and B came into existence to enable portability so that Bell labs can easily port Unix to different computers easily.

C was basically a byproduct of a business need.

I hope you understand the direction we are heading for the JavaScript.

Now, can you guess where does JS code runs?

You’re right Web Browsers. Yeah, there’s Node JS too but JS and Browsers are made for each other.

Let’s travel back in time to the mid-1990s. Back then there were 2 major browsers in the lead. Surprisingly both are dead now.

Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer

It was the era of the Browser Wars.

Microsoft was being very bullish on Internet Explorer and had a competitive edge over all the other browsers because they were able to bundle it up with Windows.

During these old days web pages were quite boring because of their static nature. And Netscape Navigator was looking for an escape from this boring static internet world to gain competitive edge.

This led to the birth of JavaScript, originally named “Mocha” and later renamed to “LiveScript” before settling on “JavaScript”.

Netscape aimed to differentiate their web browser by introducing a scripting language that would make web pages more dynamic and engaging, thereby attracting more users.

Initially JavaScript was not open source. The source code for the JavaScript implementation within Netscape Navigator was not publicly available.

JS, ECMA and Open-Source

Netscape took steps towards making JavaScript more open and standardized. In 1996, Netscape submitted the JavaScript language to the European Computer Manufacturers Association (ECMA) for standardization. This led to the creation of the ECMAScript standard, which provided a standardized specification for JavaScript and other implementations based on the language.

In 2002, Netscape, then under AOL ownership, made the decision to release the source code of their JavaScript engine as open source. This led to the creation of the Mozilla project, which developed the open-source browser Firefox.

The open sourcing of the JavaScript engine by Netscape played a significant role in the further development and widespread adoption of JavaScript. It allowed developers and other browser vendors to contribute to the improvement of the language and its implementation, leading to the growth of the JavaScript ecosystem we see today.

So, while JavaScript was initially a proprietary technology, it eventually became open source through the release of the JavaScript engine source code by Netscape.

Sadly, Netscape couldn’t escape the competition from a free browser, even with the creation of JavaScript. Internet Explorer came pre-installed on every Windows machine, while Netscape still tried to sell software licenses. On top of that, Netscape Navigator was slow to ship updates.

But eventually 2 good things happened amidst all this business wars — JavaScript, and Mozilla.

Conclusion

These two stories might seem unrelated at first.

Yet both show something fundamental about modern software: open-source milestones often start from concrete, urgent organizational constraints.

Bell Labs built B and C because they needed the Unix operating system to run across completely different hardware architectures without rewriting everything from scratch.

Netscape created JavaScript because they needed to defend their browser against Microsoft and create an interactive platform users couldn’t find anywhere else. Releasing the engine’s source code opened the door to global contributions and standard bodies like ECMAScript.

The history of JavaScript shows how practical commercial pressure can unintentionally spark open-source ecosystems. Netscape was fighting for browser survival, but the tool they rushed out in ten days ended up shaping how the modern web runs today.