davidflanagan.com > July 2006

10 Years of JavaScript

I just had the chance to review the copyright page of the 5th edition of my JavaScript book and noticed that its publication date (August, 2006) is exactly 10 years after the August, 1996 publication date of the first, "beta" edition of the book.

Thus inspired, I put together the following timeline of the JavaScript language, the client-side DOM, and of JavaScript: The Definitive Guide. I'm sure it is incomplete: additions in the comments are very welcome.

1996 March

JavaScript 1.0 released in Netscape 2.
document.write() and form manipulation are possible

1996 August

JavaScript: The Definitive Guide beta edition

1996 August

JavaScript 1.1 released in Netscape 3.
Adds array support to the core language.
Image rollovers become possible.

1996 August

IE 3 released: JScript 1.0/2.0

1997 January

JavaScript: The Definitive Guide second edition

1997 June

ECMAScript v1 standardized

1997 June

JavaScript 1.2 released in Netscape 4.
Adds switch and regexps to the language.
<layer> tag supports rudimentary DHTML

1997 October

IE 4 released: JScript 3.0
DOM based on document.all[] allows DHTML

1998 June

JavaScript: The Definitive Guide third edition

1998 June

ECMAScript v2 standardized (minor corrections only)

1998 October

JavaScript 1.3 released in Netscape 4.5.
Compliant with ECMAScript v1

1998 October

W3C publishes DOM Level 1 standard

1999 March

IE 5 released: JScript 5.0

1999 December

ECMAScript v3 standardized

2000 July

IE 5.5 released: JScript 5.5
partial support for W3C DOM

2000 November

JavaScript 1.5 released in Netscape 6.
Compliant with ECMAScript v3
Basic support for DOM, <layer> tag abandoned

2000 November

W3C publishes DOM Level 2 standard

2001 October

IE 6.0 released: JScript 5.5
substantial support for W3C DOM, except Events module

2002 January

JavaScript: The Definitive Guide fourth edition

2002 June

Mozilla 1.0 released

2004 November

Firefox 1.0 released

2005 February

Jesse James Garrett coins the term Ajax

2005 July

DOM Scripting Task Force forms,
publishes The JavaScript Manifesto

2006 August

JavaScript: The Definitive Guide fifth edition

Two final notes. First, Amazon is still saying that they'll be shipping copies of the book around August 1st. I can say for sure that the book won't be ready by the beginning of August. I don't actually know much about the printing process, but it seems reasonable to suppose that the book will be available later in August.

Second, I've lost my only copy of the 10-year old Beta edition of my book. If you have a copy, in reasonable condition, with the word "BETA" stamped across the rhino, and are would like to swap it for a brand-new copy (signed, if you want) of the 5th edition, send me an e-mail and we'll arrange a trade.

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