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I have been using JS since the mid 90s, but I don't recall needing arrays or objects back then. Frankly we weren't trying to build applications and any real pro

I have been using JS since the mid 90s, but I don't recall needing arrays or objects back then. Frankly we weren't trying to build applications and any real programming work was done on the back end (remember that xmlHttpRequest wouldn't exist for years to come, so any changes to the page were made by going to a new page which would require a round trip to the server, so the server could do anything it needed to do to the page before returning it). The only things I can recall using JS for back in the early days was displaying the date and time at the bottom of the page (why we felt like that was useful is beyond me).

masswerk 7y ago
There were a few interactive scripts, usually interacting with a form as an UI. The first JS book, I knew, was the "Official Netscape JavaScript Book" (1996), which was based on Netscape 3 beta. This one featured a pretty complex area code application as a demonstration object and things like order forms. I started pretty much with the introduction of NS3, when NS2 and JavaScript1.0 were still the common platform. Fun fact, for a year or so, you'd frequently include a script twice, once in a simpler form for NS2 and similar, and once targeting Netscape 3 (and, later, IE3) using a `<script language="javascript1.1">` tag, which was ignored by the earlier browsers, implementing a more complex version of the same functions. (This scheme was used again, when DHTML became a thing, this time using the `language="javascript1.2"` attribute. However, this switch came with a few caveats, since it also activated some rather odd behavior, like negative zero as a numeric value, which could break a few things.)
sethammons 7y ago
what a trip, I forgot about displaying the current time and date haha. The other major usage I had for JS back in the day was to focus the cursor on the login box on page load.
kalleboo 7y ago
The other major uses of JavaScript were hover-over-button effects, and scrolling text in the status bar
- irrational 7y ago
  Oh my. I'd forgotten about scrolling text. Why did we do that? LOL
  - mercer 7y ago
    What a magical time... I remember being wowed by having a string of text follow my mouse around.

masswerk 7y ago

There were a few interactive scripts, usually interacting with a form as an UI. The first JS book, I knew, was the "Official Netscape JavaScript Book" (1996), which was based on Netscape 3 beta. This one featured a pretty complex area code application as a demonstration object and things like order forms. I started pretty much with the introduction of NS3, when NS2 and JavaScript1.0 were still the common platform. Fun fact, for a year or so, you'd frequently include a script twice, once in a simpler form for NS2 and similar, and once targeting Netscape 3 (and, later, IE3) using a `<script language="javascript1.1">` tag, which was ignored by the earlier browsers, implementing a more complex version of the same functions. (This scheme was used again, when DHTML became a thing, this time using the `language="javascript1.2"` attribute. However, this switch came with a few caveats, since it also activated some rather odd behavior, like negative zero as a numeric value, which could break a few things.)

sethammons 7y ago

what a trip, I forgot about displaying the current time and date haha. The other major usage I had for JS back in the day was to focus the cursor on the login box on page load.

kalleboo 7y ago

The other major uses of JavaScript were hover-over-button effects, and scrolling text in the status bar

irrational 7y ago
Oh my. I'd forgotten about scrolling text. Why did we do that? LOL
- mercer 7y ago
  What a magical time... I remember being wowed by having a string of text follow my mouse around.