Some history can be found at least here [1] and [2]. Based on that, the original idea was to build something that was based on Scheme. Then Sun came to the pict

Some history can be found at least here [1] and [2]. Based on that, the original idea was to build something that was based on Scheme. Then Sun came to the picture. They already had Java and there was pressure to have something that looked like Java. Story was that you would Java for the big stuff and Javascript for more light-weight client-side tasks. That (marketing) worked out pretty well. At least for me it took years to figure out what kind of language Javascript really was. Seeing jQuery for the first time was kind of revelation. [1] https://auth0.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-javascript/ https://auth0.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-javascript/ [2] https://2ality.com/2011/03/javascript-how-it-all-began.html https://2ality.com/2011/03/javascript-how-it-all-began.html