CS 328 - Week 10 Labs - 2016-04-01

(after review for Exam 2)

A few beginning notes about client-side JavaScript

*   see course text! Has a good intro;

*   NOW: intro to client-side JavaScript;
    *   Java != JavaScript !!!

    *   (although it does make use of some "C-style" syntax
        as Java does -- { } for blocks, very similar
        if and while statements, for example)
        
        *   as a C-influenced scripting language, also
	    has some similarities to PHP
	    (although variable names DON'T start with $)

    *   JavaScript is (considered to be)
        an implementation of a web standard
        called ECMAScript

        ...the latest specification  of
        JavaScript is called ECMAScript 6

    *   client-side JavaScript is JavaScript
        that is executed on the client tier,
	on the CLIENT's computer (typically
	by their browser)

        *   there IS server-side JavaScript,
	    that's just outside the scope of
	    this course...

    *   The ECMAScript specification does not
        include the Document Object Model (DOM)
        which is standardized by the World Wide
	Web Consortium (W3C)

	The DOM defines the way in which HTML
	document objects are exposed to your
	script

        ...since we want to use client-side
	JavaScript to affect our HTML documents,
	we shall be VERY interested in the
	DOM;