What is JavaScript, really?

What is JavaScript, really?

JavaScript ("JS" for short) is a full-fledged dynamic programming language that, when applied to an HTML document, can provide dynamic interactivity on websites. It was invented by Brendan Eich, co-founder of the Mozilla project, the Mozilla Foundation, and the Mozilla Corporation.
You can do pretty much anything with JavaScript. You'll start small with simple features such as carousels, image galleries, fluctuating layouts, and responses to button clicks. Eventually as you get more experienced with the language, you'll be able to create games, animated 2D and 3D graphics, full blown database-driven apps, and more!
JavaScript itself is fairly compact but very flexible, and developers have written a lot of tools on top of the core JavaScript language, to unlock a huge amount of extra functionality with very little effort. These include:
Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) built into web browsers, providing various functionality like dynamically creating HTML and setting CSS styles, grabbing and manipulating a video stream from the user's webcam, or generating 3D graphics and audio samples. Third-party APIs to allow developers to incorporate functionality in their sites from other properties, such as Twitter or Facebook. Third-party frameworks and libraries you can apply to your HTML to allow you to rapidly build up sites and applications.