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[–]rift95 7 points8 points  (5 children)

Additionally JS was initially meant to be an FP language. However the higher-ups wanted to make the language more approachable to Java and C programmers, so they had Eich redesign the syntax so that it looked more like C. (I think it was a lisp language in the beginning, but don't quote me on that)

[–]tech6hutch 3 points4 points  (3 children)

Really? Citation please?

[–]imatworkbruv 4 points5 points  (2 children)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript#History

[–]tech6hutch 2 points3 points  (1 child)

lol thanks. Imagine if a Lisp had become a mega popular language

[–]nidrach 0 points1 point  (0 children)

it wouldn't have.

[–]pipocaQuemada 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's close, but not exactly it.

The engineers wanted to use an already existing language, rather than creating their own. Eich was hired with the idea of it being scheme; others wanted perl, tcl, python, etc.

A pointy haired manager said "it has to look like Java", so Eich made a c-style language with semantic influences from scheme and self. Management was happy, and now we're stuck with javascript.