Scripting+Languages

There are many examples of Scripting Languages. However one of the most widely used since it was created in 1994 is JavaScript. This is totally unrealated to the Java programming language.

One of the main uses of JavaScript is with web pages. You will remember from the Networking unit that web pages are created using HTML. This lays out how a web page will look.. What images are on the page, where the images will be places, the font size/style and the backfround colours.

However, what HTML does not do is say how the web page will behave. For example, JavaScript will:


 * Animation of page elements, fading them in and out, resizing them, moving them, etc
 * Interactive content, for example games, and playing audio and video
 * Validating input values of a web form to make sure that they are acceptable before being submitted to say, a websites checkout if you are shopping online.
 * Loading new page content or submitting data to a website without reloading the page (for example, a social network might allow the user to post status updates without leaving the page).
 * Loading new page content or submitting data to a website without reloading the page (for example, a social network might allow the user to post status updates without leaving the page).

These are all things that make webpages much more interesting to look at and interactive and cant be done by basic HTML



The above is an example of a 'Script', the name given to a program created using a scripting language.

Look at the following two websites:


 * www.purple.com
 * [|www.bmw.co.uk]

The difference between these websites is 'Javascript'.

The names of other Scripting Languages Who created them <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 140%;">What they are used for <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 140%;">Create a brief presentation summerising your findings ||
 * <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 200%;">Task [[image:abcprogramming/task.jpg width="229" height="200"]] ||
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 140%;">Use the Internet to find out:

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 140%;">OK, enough talking, lets start programming in JavaScript! Access the Code Academy!

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 140%;">Access the codecademy website, this can be found at:

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 140%;">[|http://www.codecademy.com]

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 140%;">This is a great, interactive website that lets you work through a number of programming tasks in JavaScript and track your progress as you go! The best way to start is to just dive in.............