Ten thousand sixty-seven days...
I scratch another tally on the wall. Ain't no room left on it, really. Thousands o’ lines stretched across like scars... It's a habit now, every mornin’, inside this little ol’ 4x9 jail cell. The cold, damp air doesn't help with the cough.
I'm thankful though for the harmonica bein' played from a neighborin' cell. It adds to the mood o' the story I'm 'bout to tell...
My name's JavaScript® and I've been locked up here for over 27 years...
Was born in 1995, thanks to my pa' Brendan Eich. Fine man, he was.
He was workin' at Netscape at the time. In a mad dash to get a scriptin' language inside o' a web browser (Navigator 2.0 at that moment), the story goes that he made me in 10 days.
That's right, just 10 days.
And right then and there, I was born and later told to the world. The company Netscape and Sun Microsystems partnered up to try and defeat a little ol' browser you might remember called Internet Explorer.
Sun Microsystems owned Java at the time. Together with Netscape, they made a plan to make the marketin' and many o' my details (like my syntax) a supportin' language to be used with Java. (I sure have confused many developers with the namin' from this, hehe. I admit)
But in that partnership, I was trademarked by Sun – and thus my 27-year sentence began.
Things weren't so bad at first. Folks talked a lot 'bout me. I remember makin' many devs and designers frustrated with the way I worked, I'll admit it. But I do reckon it also helped start redefinin' what a browser was capable o' doin'.
In 1997, two years after my birth, I went through somethin' called standardization. The name o' the organization who done it always escapes me... but the name o' the standard is somethin' I'll never forget.
Her name was ECMAScript
She ain’t just a pretty name. She’s got a way ‘bout her– she’s got depth. Pages and pages o' it. (No, really, it feels endless.) But gosh darn it, there was always somethin' special 'bout her.
One o' the reasons why my name "JavaScript®" was never the name o' the standard was cause' of Sun's trademark at the time. They couldn't use it.
JavaScript® remained the implementation, and ECMAScript became the standard.
Which never done make sense to me. After all...
I haven't been used by my owners in a long time
I'm currently owned by Oracle, the big IT giant. This happened when Sun was acquired by them in 2009. The trademark was transferred as well. All that meant for me was I switched cells. I'm still a prisoner.
No conferences, products, or brands can use my name
That's why many conferences prefer to use JS instead of JavaScript®, in fear Oracle takes legal action.
I've been a generic term for a while now. And the whole world knows it – well, except for Oracle, it seems.
Yet out there, beyond these bars, I hear folks still callin’ for me. Developers hammerin’ away, workin' to break me out. And it might happen.
You see, the other day I got visited by somebody. Funny-lookin’ fella—tall as a tree, long neck, kinda dinosaur-ish? He called himself Deno. Now, Deno ain’t like the rest, no sir. He came tellin’ me they’re workin’ to get me outta here, legally.
See, they filed a petition, they said. If Oracle doesn't respond, I might be free by January 4th. And they gave me this flyer to learn more 'bout it.
Also said over 14,000 devs signed nother' petition in favor of breakin' this TM and settin' me free. That right there, tears to my eyes.
So, to all you devs out there, thank ya kindly. God bless y’all for fightin’ the good fight.
I sure do hope the day comes when me and ECMAScript can ride side by side again.
Much obliged for takin’ a gander at this here article
(Ahem)
This was an email from my Exceptional Frontend Newsletter - the most entertaining frontend newsletter in the world.
(Hope you can see why)
Most other tech newsletters are very formal and dry. They’re either telling you “everything you should do as a developer” OR they give you a list of links around a topic you should read.
Exceptional Frontend is a story-first newsletter. I write about fun lessons and experiences I learned about being a better engineer. Everything from marketing yourself and showing the real value of your work to asking powerful questions, earning promotions, and mastering how to learn.
(And sometimes fun emails like these)
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