OpenJS Keynote: JavaScript, the First 20 Years of the Web Stack

The first 20 years of JavaScript marked the dawn of the Web stack and a new generation of Web developers who had to deal with a community of traditional technologists. They also faced the continuous looming threat of Microsoft explained Allen Wirfs-Brock in a recorded keynote from OpenJS Foundation's virtual conference in June. Wirfs-Brock was also project editor of the ECMAScript specification from 2008-2015 and wrote the book-sized journal article for the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) entitled “JavaScript: The First 20 Years” for the History of Programming Language conference (HOPL), with co-author Brendan Eich, JavaScript’s creator. In this The New Stack Makers podcast, hosted by Alex Williams, founder and editor-in-chief of The New Stack, Wirfs-Brock of Wirfs-Brock Associates offers his historical perspective, including JavaScript’s changes during the 25 years after Eich created the language. “What really happened is what people thought was going to be a minor piece of browser technology — particularly over the last 10 years — has really taken over the world of programming languages,” said Wirfs-Brock. “And so it's quite remarkable.”