Patent issues actually are exactly what Free Software is all about. I think you're conflating free with no-cost.
On Tue Feb 17 2015 at 6:04:49 AM <[email protected]> wrote: > Free and "non-free" languages > > I've never heard of a non-free computer language, at least in the same > sense > a computer software can be. Both are very different things. You can use > any > language as long as there are free programs which understand it. Free web > browsers such as Abrowser and IceCat will run JavaScript, HTML and CSS, and > that's what you should mainly care about. > > Some may consider a language such as C# non-free because of patent issues, > but that's a really different thing and not really comparable to non-free > software > > JavaScript and ECMAScript > > ECMAScript is just a different name for JavaScript. When the language was > first developed it was named JavaScript. It was name by marketing people > because of the popularity of the Java language. When people wanted to > make a > standard for the language, so it can consistently used between browser, > they > named it ECMAScript. They used a different name because JavaScript is a > trademark. > > As I understand, JScript is just the Microsoft name for JavaScript, again > because of the trademark issue. The ActionScript language is a completely > different thing. It's solely or mainly used bу Adobe Flash programs. > > All widely used browsers (free or non-free) use JavaScript/ECMAScript. > > HTML, HTML5 and CSS > > Labeling things as HTML5 doesn't make sense anymore. It's nothing but a > marketing word nowadays (a buzzword) and it only brings confusion and > misunderstanding. There's no HTML5 in practice, only historically. > > You have various specs (specifications) describing different features which > browsers should implement. When a browser implements something you can > make > websites using those features. There are many specs and new ones are > written > regularly. For example, some of the major specs are: > > > HTML Living Standard: https://whatwg.org/html > > It describes the basics of HTML, along with other more advanced > things, > such various web APIs used by JavaScript. > The spec is changed regularly (almost daily) as new features are > added > and removed - that's why it's called a "living standard". > > > CSS2: http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css2/ > > It describes the basics of CSS. > All other CSS specs build upon this one. > > > > > Along with those two, there are many separate specifications describing > additional web features. Here are for example some of the additional CSS > specs: > > > http://dev.w3.org/csswg/selectors/ > http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css-images/ > http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css-color/ > http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css-flexbox/ > http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css-align/ > > > The DOM and web APIs > > JavaScript is scripting/programming language like any other. It's not > specific to the web in any way. But when you use JavaScript in a browser > you > also have additional to web specific features, like being able to > interactively change things on the page. > > The thing which enables you to change things on the page is called the DOM. > It's an API used by JavaScript in web browsers. > > There are many different APIs which enable you to do different things. > Some > of them are bundled in one spec, some have a separate specs. The APIs do > things like reading data from files, saving offline data (similar to > cookies), loading fonts from websites, drawing 3D graphics and so on. > > Here are some web API specs as an example: > > > https://dom.spec.whatwg.org/ > https://whatwg.org/html#webstorage > http://www.w3.org/TR/IndexedDB/ > http://dev.w3.org/2006/webapi/FileAPI/ > http://dev.w3.org/html5/webvtt/ > > > Some seem to label all web APIs as "the DOM", but I don't think that's > technically correct. The DOM certainly is one of the major web APIs in any > case. > > PHP, Ruby and Python > > If you are contemplating on which language to learn from these three, I > would > suggest Python. Unlike the other two, Python it's also widely used to > write > other types of programs too, not just for web sites. A lot of GNU programs > are written in Python. > > Where to Start > > I don't really know where to start from. > > I've never read any books on web developments, so I can't recommend any. > I've started by reading various HTML, CSS and JavaScript tutorials on the > web. > > Nowadays I notice that most tutorials are actually wrong in many aspects. > They teach bad practices and deprecated features. You should be aware of > that. > > The most accurate info I find is on https://developer.mozilla.org/ and > definitely in the specs. That's what I usually read this days. Although > both are kind of hard to understand, if you are a beginner. > >
