ECMAScript
Definition
“ECMAScript is a scripting programming language, standardized by Ecma International in the ECMA-262 specification. The language is widely used on the web, and is often referred to as JavaScript or JScript, after the two primary implementations of the specification.” (Wikipedia), retrieved 12:49, 22 May 2007 (MEST)).
See also:
Related entries: Scripting language, AJAX, SVG, XHTML, Sharable Content Object Reference Model, ....
Short history
See the Wikipedia article for the moment ...
References
Consult ecmascript.org for news.
Standards
- ECMA-262 ECMAScript Language Specification 3rd edition (E262-3) (December 1999)
- E262-3 at Mozilla.org
- Standard ECMA-357, ECMAScript for XML (E4X) Specification, 2nd edition (December 2005)
- This is a new standard that isn't very much implemented yet.
- Under preparation
- ECMAScript 3.1 (early 2009) ?
- See ECMAScript Harmony for a discussion
- Failed standards
- ECMAScript 4, a draft specification that was the basis for JavaScript 2.0 (Firefox) and ActionScript 3 (Adobe) has been given up by the Technical committe in Aug 2008. There will be a version 4 sometimes, but for instance packages are dropped. Read some comments:
- ECMAScript Harmony
- JavaScript Stalled, AS3 Orphaned - Microsoft to Blame? (Grant Skinner, Aug 2008)
- Ru Roh! Adobe Screwed By EcmaScript Standards Agreement (Hank Williams, Aug 2008).
Manuals
Human readable ECMAScript manuals don't seem to exist. We therefore suggest to consult JavaScript manuals, in particular
- The Mozilla documentation:
- Core JavaScript Reference
- Core JavaScript Guide Primary Mozilla reference for programmers
- JScript Deviations from ES3 (PDF doc from Microsoft), Retrieved April 2008.
Daniel K. Schneider doesn't know how good a various implementations are. Probably none is 100% correct ECMA-357-3. On the other hand, most 2008 browsers (IE7, FF2, Opera 9, etc.) implement ECMA-357 reasonably well. The trouble is DOM, i.e. DOM level 2 and 3 HTML and XML bindings.
Overviews
- language overview whitepaper (oct 2007)
Tutorials
See JavaScript links for JavaScript tutorials (lots...)
E4X
- Fremantle, Paul and Anthony Elder (1005). AJAX and scripting Web services with E4X, Part 1, IBM Works, HTML
- E4X Tutorial, W3Schools.
- Introducing E4X (by Kurt Cagle, xml.com, nov 2007)