JAVASCRIPT REBORN: Node.js, Nashorn, JavaScriptCore


JavaScript: A language for HTML into Browser (?)


JavaScript language has been considered for long time, strictly joined both with HTML and Internet Browsers.

 First with DHTML then with AJAX and finally with HTML5 javascript has rapidly became wide used into web programming land.

 But, as said, JavaScript was less famous as programming language for business or concerning whatever stuff outside the browser. 

 Concerning my experience, i remember that i used JavaScript, out of Browser, for develop web app in Microsoft Active Server Page (long time ago) using JScript  (Microsoft's implementation of ECMAScript) and other small projects using  Mozilla Rhino 

2012, JavaScript reborn

Now seems that JavaScript is reborn as a "common purpose" programming language, breaking definitely the browser's borders. 

 Throughout 2012, JavaScript seems to be solving problems across the industry, causing some justifiable hype across a number of libraries and frameworks.

 Below find out some actors that could be strategic into this JavaScript change hoping also give you an idea of what is the state-of-art

Node.js

Node.js is a platform built on Chrome's JavaScript runtime for easily building fast, scalable network applications. Node.js uses an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model that makes it lightweight and efficient, perfect for data-intensive real-time applications that run across distributed devices.

Node.js has used to develop real-time logistic systems, cloud aware applications, as well as system utilities  

node-webkit

Lately has been lauched a new project named node-webkit. This is a node extension that allow to build desktop application using HTML5, CSS3, JS and WebGL.

Java Nashom

Oracle's Project Nashorn was recently announced, due for release with Java 8 in late 2013, which will allow JavaScript to be embedded in Java applications and to develop standalone JavaScript applications.

Nashorn's goal is to implement a lightweight high-performance JavaScript runtime in Java designed to take full advantage of newer technologies for native JVMs. 

Avatar

To confirm Oracle's strategy around JavaScript take a look to Project Avatar, a platform  that provides a JavaScript services layer zeroed in on supporting REST, WebSockets and Server-Sent Events.

IOS JavaScriptCore

At last but not at least the JavaScript engine has landed also on IOS 7. 
Until iOS 7 there was only one way to interact with JavaScript from an iOS app through method   stringByEvaluatingJavaScriptFromString of the UIWebView, but a single method API was very limiting. 

With IOS7 has been delivered the "JavaScriptCore library" that allows wrapping of standard JavaScript objects into Objective-C. 

JavaScriptCore gives developers deep access to the full JavaScript runtime from Objective-C. You can syntax-check and execute scripts, access variables, receive callbacks, and share Objective-C objects, making possible a wide range of interactions.

JavaScriptCore makes real the possibility  to port of apps between different mobile operating system platforms. 

Conclusion

I love this kind of stuff. 

Now i'm using Node.js  and i'm approaching with IOS JavaScriptCore that i consider a great opportunity to move mobile programming to another level

Let me know what do you think about and ... 

enjoy JavaScript



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