JavaScript features , uses , advantages and disadvantages

JavaScript is used to extend functionality in the websites , The uses range from on screen visual effects to processing & calculating the data on the web pages with ease as well as extended functionality to the websites using third party scripts among several other handy features and it is one of the most popular programming languages .

JavaScript is a dominant web development technology , It is the full-fledged programming language , It provides many unique features , It has been around for over 20 years now , It becomes a favorite for many up-and-coming Web developers in the recent years .

JavaScript is the most misunderstood language in the world , That’s may be because of the name , It has a prefix Java in its name , for which few people thinks it has some relation with JAVA , but actually it is not , But the most misinterpretation is done due to the second word in its name , which is Script .

JavaScript is not a script to validate forms or making animations , It’s a real language , small & sophisticated , It’s not a subset of JAVA , It is a completely independent , flexible , super dynamic , object oriented language .

JavaScript can not make any .exe, .dll or ay abstract class files , So , it throws the errors & exceptions while executing only that particular path of the program , The frameworks such as backbone , ember , angular , jQuery and many more are developed on top of JavaScript & they are changing the old concepts of web development .

In case of languages such as JavaScript , where you don’t have to use any IDE , this approach helps you in proper line by line debugging , if any part of the same program is under construction ,  You can run the other flows of the program .

 

JavaScript advantages

JavaScript is worked into any type of the web page , You do not need to change the file extension & re-work the page if JavaScript is added , JavaScript is not simple to work into existing sites only , but it is easy to learn , Its syntax is similar enough to English that most people can pick it up quickly .

It uses the DOM model that provides plenty of prewritten functionality to the various objects on the pages making it a breeze to develop the script to solve the custom purpose , The code is executed on the user’s processor instead of the web server thus saving the bandwidth on the web server .

The speed is the language’s greatest advantage , As the code is executed on the user’s computer , The results & processing is completed instantly depending on the task , It allows for a reduced load on the servers which can be important for heavily-trafficed sites .

Third party add-ons like Grease-monkey enable JavaScript developers to write the snippets of JavaScript that can execute on desired web pages to extend its functionality , If you use the website & require a certain feature to be included , you can write it yourself & use an add-on like Grease-monkey to implement it on the web page .

Any code functions can be run instead of having to contact the server & wait for an answer , So , JavaScript is very fast , It is simple to learn & implement , It plays nicely with the other languages & it can be used in many applications , Unlike PHP or SSI scripts and it can be inserted into any web page regardless of the file extension .

JavaScript is used inside the scripts that written in the other languages such as Perl and PHP , It reduces the demand on the website server , It alone can be used across all software layers , It’s present in millions of websites , It is one of the languages most learned & recognized by the developers .

JavaScript offers many special features in its functions , Wide browsers support it , It offers easy access to the document objects & their manipulation , It is relatively secure , There is no long download times & there is no Plug-in support required .

Not only the objects , but also the functions can be stored , you can write codes for the function & get the required value , JavaScript handles them very nicely , You can write & run the code in the browser , There’s no need to download or install any complicated IDEs or compilers .

There are no classes in JavaScript , The prototypal inheritance does the same thing differently , It is more flexible than classical , It is suitable for dynamic languages , It is very simple to use & no need to use the new keyword .

A lot of people have a misconception that JavaScript is for the browsers only , But it is a multi platform language , Besides the browsers , JavaScript is used in Dashboards , Dreamweaver , Photoshop , PDF editors , Articulate , Yahoo Widgets and few embedded systems are also using JavaScript .

You can save time through code reuse & sharing with full stack JavaScript , You can reduce the effort by reusing the parts of the code ( or sharing libraries , templates & models ) on both back & front end that are very close in terms of logic and implementation .

JavaScript is the most-used programming language , You don’t need to bear the additional expenses for costly licenses or subscriptions as JavaScript tools are free or open source projects , Many tools are updated regularly & evolving fast due to the active community contributions , Instead of relying on a fixed set of technologies .

JavaScript is a very high level language , You will not need to worry about the memory management & the segmentation faults , It is easy to share your creations with the other people , You can create the websites , the scripts or the programs that are shared & run by sending a link easily .

With the advent of node.js and Rhino you can now do server-side development in JavaScript , making it a general-purpose web language , You don’t need to learn two languages to write web applications if you start with JavaScript .

JavaScript disadvantages

There are many security issues , JavaScript snippets , when appended onto the web pages execute on the client servers and they can be used to exploit the user’s system , While a certain restriction is set by modern web standards on the browsers , The malicious code can still be executed complying with the restrictions set .

The code can be exploited for the malicious purposes if it executes on the users’ computer , So , some people choose to disable JavaScript , JavaScript is interpreted differently by different browsers , Whereas the server-side scripts will produce the same output , The client-side scripts can be a little unpredictable .

There is not standard support for JavaScript across the browsers esp. DOM , The web page is useless if script does not work , JavaScript may be disabled by the browser reading HTML file , no control over this & JavaScript can run slowly .

JavaScript can be easily exploited , The people with malicious intent can compromise JavaScript without much trouble , Many savvy users disable JavaScript because they know about its security flaws , So , The developers need to take care when coding so that the scripts they write are not too easily disrupted.

JavaScript isn’t always the same for all users , As some people disable JavaScript , but it can render differently depending on the user’s browser , These quirks can hamper the user’s experience on your website , You should test your scripts in multiple browsers & in several versions of those browsers before deploying your code .

Some developers think that the programmers who learn through JavaScript lack the critical thinking and problem solving skills that the programmer needs to be successful Because of JavaScript’s fairly low bar to entry ,  JavaScript is a great place to start , but you need to ensure that you have relevant skills and can work in several languages .

JavaScript doesn’t have linkers because of load & go delivery approach , So , the compilation units are all combined in the common global space that causes few security issues , JavaScript has single inheritance only and multiple inheritances are not possible .

There is no copy or equal method in JavaScript , The bit wise operators in JavaScript convert the operand in 32-bit signed integer and turn the result back to 64-bit floating point , So, bit wise operation is slower here .

When you don’t really learn the object oriented programming with standard JavaScript , You can use the objects & make things seem object oriented , but it is not object oriented and you can learn it much better with a language like Java .

JavaScript is a quirky language , many of those quirks will trip you up during development , your code can be broken because of a line that is way down the page from the part that’s not behaving as expected , All languages have quirks , but JavaScript’s quirks are stranger & more harmful than those of many other popular languages

There are many versions of the language , You can write code to target all JavaScript environments , but there’s a lot to keep track of if you want to do that , JavaScript won’t teach you how to deal with multi-threaded programming , Instead you’ll learn how to deal with asynchronous programming .