JavaScript Tab Update

JavaScript Tab Update

Abstract:
JavaScript, formerly known as LiveScript, standardized as ECMAScript, is a language originally used on both client and server web platforms. Through unfortunate historical vendor interactions, server side usage of JavaScript became less common. With the advent of JavaScript engines, which can be decoupled from the client browser, JavaScript became usable on the server side for independent projects.

History:
Netscape Communications brought to the market some of the first widespread adopted web client http browsers and web servers. One of Netscape's key technologies was called LiveScript - a client and server side technology to bring automation and communication to the browser and server suite. With the advent of Sun Microsystems cross-platform Java language, Java quickly became a hit, and LiveScript was rebranded JavaScript. Microsoft soon released their own web client & server platform, but only included a somewhat compatible client side JavaScript, creating a proprietary language on the server-side, leaving JavaScript to become less common on the server. Nations quickly figured out that Microsoft's half-baked implementation was a bad for the world and standardization soon occurred through ECMAScript. Sun's Java, with it's cross-platform capability, quickly became the language of choice on the server while JavaScript became the language of choice on the client. The battle for the fastest web browsers created teams of developers building JavaScript Engines, which could be decoupled from the Web Client. With the advent of decoupled JavaScript engines, developers started the movement back to server side JavaScript. NodeJS is a recent server side JavaScript non-blocking framework. NodeJS is based upon Google V8 engine, which unfortunately only works on a subset of known servers architectures and operating systems.

Resources:
The following are recent resource changes to the JavaScript tab on the Network Management blog.

NodeJS Specific Developments
[html] Server side JavaScript Engine: Node.JS
[html] Community Support for NodeJS
[html] Internal Developers List for NodeJS
[html] X11 Client Implementation under NodeJS
[html] X11 "nwm" window manager
[html] XCB directly rendered by node-canvas
[html] Google V8 JavaScript Engine

JavaScript Engines
[html] Mozilla SpiderMonkey (Various platforms)
[html] Mozilla Tamarin (Various platforms)
[html] Mozilla Rhino (Java based JavaScript engine)
[html] Google V8 JavaScript Engine (Intel, ARM)
[html] Mozilla JaegerMonkey
[html] Apple WebKit Nitro (SquirrelFish Extreme)
[html] Opera Presto