ECMAScript

ECMAScript ('ɛkməskrɪpt; ES) is a standard for scripting languages, including JavaScript, JScript, and ActionScript. It is also best known as a JavaScript standard intended to ensure the interoperability of web pages across different web browsers. It is standardized by Ecma International in the document ECMA-262. ECMAScript is commonly used for client-side scripting on the World Wide Web, and it is increasingly being used to write server-side applications and services using Node.js and other runtime environments. ECMA-262, or the ECMAScript Language Specification, defines the ECMAScript Language, or just ECMAScript. ECMA-262 specifies only language syntax and the semantics of the core application programming interface (API), such as , , and , while valid implementations of JavaScript add their own functionality such as input/output and handling. The ECMAScript specification is a standardized specification of a scripting language developed by Brendan Eich of Netscape; initially named Mocha, then LiveScript, and finally JavaScript. In December 1995, Sun Microsystems and Netscape announced JavaScript in a press release. In November 1996, Netscape announced a meeting of the Ecma International standards organization to advance the standardization of JavaScript. The first edition of ECMA-262 was adopted by the Ecma General Assembly in June 1997. Several editions of the language standard have been published since then. The name "ECMAScript" was a compromise between the organizations involved in standardizing the language, especially Netscape and Microsoft, whose disputes dominated the early standards sessions. Eich commented that "ECMAScript was always an unwanted trade name that sounds like a skin disease." ECMAScript has been formalized through operational semantics by work at Stanford University and the Department of Computing, Imperial College London for security analysis and standardization. "ECMA" stood for "European Computer Manufacturers Association" until 1994.