Question

The browser is a really hostile programming environment.

Douglas Crockford, The JavaScript Programming Language (video lecture)

The next part of this book will talk about web browsers. Without web browsers, there would be no JavaScript. And even if there were, no one would ever have paid any attention to it.

Web technology has, from the start, been decentralized, not just technically but also in the way it has evolved. Various browser vendors have added new functionality in ad hoc and sometimes poorly thought out ways, which then sometimes ended up being adopted by others and finally set down as a standard.

This is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it is empowering to not have a central party control a system but have it be improved by various parties working in loose collaboration (or, occasionally, open hostility). On the other hand, the haphazard way in which the Web was developed means that the resulting system is not exactly a shining example of internal consistency. In fact, some parts of it are downright messy and confusing.

This is a book about getting computers to do what you want them to do. Computers are about as common as screwdrivers today, but they contain a lot more hidden complexity and thus are harder to operate and understand. To many, they remain alien, slightly threatening things.