JavaScript has a quite fascinating history. Brendan Eich created on his own the first language prototype in just ten days. Its implementation was highly influenced by the concepts of first-class functions from Scheme and prototypes from Self. Initially, it was developed under the name Mocha, but released as LiveScript. The latter name didn’t last long either. Java was so hot back in 1995, that Netscape decided to take marketing move and rename their new language to JavaScript. This decision has greatly influenced the way JavaScript has been perceived for many years. Outward similarities to Java promoted imperative, object-oriented style among developers using it. Ideas borrowed from Scheme have always enabled using functional programming styles as well. However, it was never the case until it started to get momentum a few month ago.
Continue reading A journey to functional JavaScript: Part 1 – fundamentals