> -----Original Message-----
> From: Uffe Holst [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Wednesday, September 13, 2000 6:02 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: [voyager] Re: JS
>
> In a message of 13-Sep-00 Robert Jensen wrote:
>
> >> JS is not a standard in HTML AFAIK. It is a proprietary extension.
>
> > Actually JS (in the form of ECMA-script) is a W3 aproved standard.
>
> Yes, but most probably not in the form of the Netscape/MSIE
> implementation.
Netscape's JavaScript and the ECMA-262 specification are very closely
linked. As you may remember, Netscape was the original developer of
JavaScript, with subsequent releases of Microsoft browsers supporting
'something similar' under the name JScript (obviously, Microsoft tried to
take control by going their own way with their dialect, but this only
resulted in making the job of creating good scripts more difficult).
The ECMA-262 standard is in fact based on the Netscape JavaScript v1.1
standard. When Netscape released JavaScript v1.2, ECMA-262 wasn't complete
yet. It was completed before JavaScript v1.3 was released, and Netscape made
v1.3 fully compliant to ECMA-262.
And this cycle has a second loop, as the second version of ECMA-262 wasn't
finished yet when Javascript v1.3 was released. JavaScript v1.2 and v1.3
support regular expressions, which were not introduced into ECMA-262 until
the third edition, which I think is the most recent one now.
Note however that ECMA-262 only describes the language itself, not the HTML
reflection (how to create an object in the script language for a rendered
HTML element like windows, frames, buttons, links, form elements), the event
handling mechanism (onClick, onMouseOver, onMouseOut, etc.), or the
interaction with the browser (location, status, etc.).
So technically speaking: Yes, JS is a proprietary extension. But it is not
only the 'original version', which has been used as a basis for the
'official' standard (and for Microsoft's version), it has also become the de
facto standard, which - in this case - carries a lot more weight than it
being a standard.
> Uffe Holst
W.
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