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Subject:Re: Java vs. Javascript From:"Kristine J. Olberg" <kjolberg -at- IX -dot- NETCOM -dot- COM> Date:Tue, 25 Mar 1997 21:14:16 -0600
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> From: Andy Carroll <acarroll -at- WEB -dot- NET>
> Please correct me if I am wrong, but I thought there was a difference
> between Java and Javascript. I thought Java was the big, new,
> everybody-has-to-know-it, web-page-and-everything-else programming
> language, and that Javascript was a much smaller scale application that
> renamed itself to jump on the Java bandwagon.
You're right. There is a difference between Java and JavaScript. Java is a
compiled language like C or C++, while JavaScript is interpreted. Newer
browsers (IE 3.x+ and Netscape 2.x+) have built-in JavaScript interpreters,
so you can put raw JavaScript code in an HTML file. The browser will
interpret the JavaScript on the fly, so to speak. With Java, you write the
Java code and compile it, creating a Java applet. You then call the applet
by using special coding in your HTML file.
Each language has some advantages: for example, JavaScript is relatively
simple and not so robust, while Java is robust but harder to use. I use
JavaScript in one of my company's web sites to validate data entered in
FORM fields. For example, my JavaScript ensures that a date entered is
properly formatted (no alpha characters, hyphens, or slashes) and that it
is a valid (no 2/29/97 or 13/65/97).
This site supports both Netscape and Internet Explorer, and I've found that
JavaScript does not work equally well in both. I had to make some
concessions due to some problems with JavaScript in Internet Explorer.
(Side note: JavaScript was created by Netscape as an OPEN standard.
Microsoft's implementation of the OPEN standard is called JScript and,
unfortunately, it works slightly different from JavaScript.)
Regards...Kris
----------------------------------
kris -at- olberg -dot- com
kolberg -at- actamed -dot- com
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