JS History
JavaScript was written in 10 days in 1995. Three decades later it runs in every browser, every server, mobile apps, hardware, and AI agents. Here's how it got there.
The timeline at a glance
| Year | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 1995 | Brendan Eich writes Mocha → LiveScript → JavaScript at Netscape in 10 days. |
| 1996 | Microsoft ships JScript in IE3. Renamed "ECMAScript" for the standard. |
| 1997 | ECMAScript 1 standardised at Ecma International. |
| 1999 | ES3 — regex, try/catch, switch. |
| 2005 | "Ajax" coined; XMLHttpRequest sparks the modern web app era. |
| 2008 | Google ships V8; Chrome launches. JS gets seriously fast. |
| 2009 | ES5 finalised. Ryan Dahl releases Node.js on V8 — JS on the server. |
| 2010 | npm; jQuery dominates; Backbone, Knockout start "SPA" era. |
| 2013 | React; "components" become the dominant UI model. |
| 2015 | ES2015 (ES6) — the biggest single update. Modules, classes, arrows, Promises. |
| 2016 → | Yearly TC39 cadence begins. |
| 2017 | async/await ships. Promises stop hiding in .then. |
| 2018 | Deno (Ryan Dahl again) explores a "what would Node look like today" runtime. |
| 2020 | Optional chaining + nullish coalescing land. Bun and edge runtimes rise. |
| 2024 | WebAssembly, AI agents, and async-everything are mainstream. |
Why it became universal
- It's the only language every browser understands.
- One language for client and server (Node) reduced friction.
- V8 made it fast enough for almost everything.
- npm hosts the largest software registry on Earth.
- The community is huge — Stack Overflow's most-asked-about language for years.
What the future holds
- Temporal — proper date/time handling.
- Records & Tuples — immutable value types.
- Pattern matching via the proposed
match. - Decorators — finalised and shipping.
- Pipeline operator —
x |> fn.
Tip: JavaScript is still gaining features at a brisk pace. Subscribe to a weekly newsletter (JavaScript Weekly) to stay current without trawling release notes.
Example
Example
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body>
<p id="out"></p>
<script>
document.getElementById("out").textContent = "Hello from JS History!";
</script>
</body>
</html>
Try it Yourself »
Exercise
Who created JavaScript?
Answer (last name only):
Four letters.
Discussion
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