ECMAScript

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Draft

Definition[edit | edit source]

“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)).

Short history[edit | edit source]

See the Wikipedia article for the moment ...

References[edit | edit source]

Consult ecmascript.org for news.

Standards[edit | edit source]

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[edit | edit source]

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.