The inaugural Dallas.js Meetup!

This group was started quite simply because there were no Dallas JavaScript group. There is the Dallas Ruby Brigade and DallasPHP, and I'm sure other language specific groups, but there was no JavaScript group. Curious since the majority of innovation on the web today is being done in JavaScript.

That being said, as a first post to the discussion board I'd like to introduce my thoughts on the future of innovation in JavaScript and where I see this group headed:

[divider]

JavaScript History

JavaScript as a language has a checkered past. Created with a very narrow purpose in mind, Netscape was looking to supplant Windows as the dominant programming platform by bundling the Java Runtime Engine with each copy of Netscape Navigator it sold. As a tribute to their business partner, the scripting language Netscape was including for basic UI manipulation was branded JAVAScript.

Though no initial relation to Java, JavaScript has become the unlikely hero of the Internet by achieving what Java had hoped and failed to do: becoming a single language capable of running on any platform (read operating system). JavaScript has surpassed even the wildest dreams of Netscape, now carried on in spirit by the work at the Mozilla Foundation. Through the Mozilla Foundation, the capabilities of JavaScript have been pushed further, and with the rise of the Apple and Google and their commitments to the Webkit rendering engine through Safari and Chrome we are finding JavaScript at a precipice.

JavaScript today is on the verge of realizing the dream and vision of Java more than Java ever could. The JavaScript runtime has become the single most adopted and distributed runtime for any programming language in the history of computing. Running on nearly every device connected to the Internet. Possible hyperbole of the previous statements excused, with the benefit of hindsight, we can say that JavaScript with a name of little to no significance outside of a marketing relationship could not have had a more meaningful and appropriate name given to it. JavaScript has become what Java could not.

That being said, the future of JavaScript looks nothing but bright. With visionaries like John Resig at jQuery, the Mozilla Foundation, and organizations like the WHATWG, JavaScript is quickly becoming a language capable of what in the past could only be achieved through proprietary plug-ins. JavaScript today is fast, efficient, and proposes so many opportunities for innovation the need for a community to help foster these ideas has never been more important. The problems and the solutions we face have never been more exciting than now, and though the JavaScript community is very much still in its infancy, there is a passion capable of realizing what those who came before us only dreamed.

Key concepts that Dallas.js will cover in the coming months will include, but are not limited to the follow:

Comet and Asynchronous Server-Side Push Technology Local JavaScript Applications with no Domain association pulling data and code from the cloud and APIs Client-Side MVC and other client-side architectures / design patters such as the Observer Model, Modularity, Client-Server Architecture Canvas, OpenGL and browser-based JavaScript graphics rendering Stand-alone JavaScript programs (no-Internet connection) Server-side JavaScript (Node.js, etc...) Client-side Storage

and many, many more. That being said, let's get the ball rolling.

[divider]

Where do you see the future of JavaScript and client-side architecture headed?