JavaScript is the Netscape-developed object scripting language used in millions of web pages and server applications worldwide. Netscape's JavaScript is a superset of the ECMA-262/ISO-16262 standard scripting language, with only mild differences from the published standard. Code is in the tree to support JavaScript 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, and 1.4. JavaScript 1.4 includes support for some ECMAv2 features (exception handling and new switch behaviour among them).

Netscape has developed and contributed implementations of JavaScript in both C and Java. The Java implementation is called Rhino; for more information see the Rhino documentation.

Where do I get it?

The core C JS engine can be found in mozilla/js/src. There is a standalone interpreter that can be built using Makefile.ref. Read mozilla/js/src/README.html for the nitty gritty.

You can get the engine via CVS, or look for recent tarballs at ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/js/.

For information on getting and building Rhino see the Rhino documentation.

Where do I find out more?

Some documentation can be found on the mozilla.org site. Netscape DevEdge has some general language docs as well, and there are a pair of newsgroups as well: netscape.dev.jsref for discussions about the engine itself, and netscape.devs-javascript for discussions about use of the language in the browser. comp.lang.javascript is carried on more servers, and also has discussion about JavaScript in various forms.

The mozilla newsgroup netscape.public.mozilla.jseng carries discussions about the core engine and language (but not any discussions about the document object model or any parts specific to the browser embedding).

The ECMA TC39 group is responsible for standardizing JavaScript.

The future language directions page contains proposals for and exploration of upcoming changes to the language.

The test library page contains information about tests for the core JavaScript engines.

The projects page lists other open source projects using the JavaScript engines.

Mike Shaver

Last modified: February 5, 1999