Although there are strong outward similarities between JavaScript and Java, including language name, syntax, and respective standard libraries, the two are distinct languages and differ greatly in their design. JavaScript was influenced by programming languages such as Self and Scheme.

JavaScript is also used in environments that are not Web-based, such as PDF documents, site-specific browsers, and desktop widgets. Newer and faster JavaScript virtual machines (VMs) and platforms built upon them have also increased the popularity of JavaScript for server-side Web applications. On the client side, developers have traditionally implemented JavaScript as an interpreted language, but more recent browsers perform just-in-time compilation. Programmers also use JavaScript in video-game development, in crafting desktop and mobile applications, and in server-side network programming with run-time environments such as Node.js.

In 1993, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), a unit of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, released NCSA Mosaic, the first popular graphical Web browser, which played an important part in expanding the growth of the nascent World Wide Web. In 1994, a company called Mosaic Communications was founded in Mountain View, California and employed many of the original NCSA Mosaic authors to create Mosaic Netscape. However, it intentionally shared no code with NCSA Mosaic. The internal codename for the company’s browser was Mozilla, which stood for “Mosaic killer”, as the company’s goal was to displace NCSA Mosaic as the world’s number one web browser. The first version of the Web browser, Mosaic Netscape 0.9, was released in late 1994. Within four months it had already taken three-quarters of the browser market and became the main browser for Internet in the 1990s. To avoid trademark ownership problems with the NCSA, the browser was subsequently renamed Netscape Navigator in the same year, and the company took the name Netscape Communications.

Netscape Communications realized that the Web needed to become more dynamic. Marc Andreessen, the founder of the company believed that HTML needed a “glue language” that was easy to use by Web designers and part-time programmers to assemble components such as images and plugins, where the code could be written directly in the Web page markup. In 1995, the company recruited Brendan Eich with the goal of embedding the Scheme programming language into its Netscape Navigator. Before he could get started, Netscape Communications collaborated with Sun Microsystems to include in Netscape Navigator Sun’s more static programming language Java, in order to compete with Microsoft for user adoption of Web technologies and platforms. Netscape Communications then decided that the scripting language they wanted to create would complement Java and should have a similar syntax, which excluded adopting other languages such as Perl, Python, TCL, or Scheme. To defend the idea of JavaScript against competing proposals, the company needed a prototype. Eich wrote one in 10 days, in May 1995.

Although it was developed under the name Mocha, the language was officially called LiveScript when it first shipped in beta releases of Netscape Navigator 2.0 in September 1995, but it was renamed JavaScript when it was deployed in the Netscape Navigator 2.0 beta 3 in December. The final choice of name caused confusion, giving the impression that the language was a spin-off of the Java programming language, and the choice has been characterized as a marketing ploy by Netscape to give JavaScript the cachet of what was then the hot new Web programming language.

There is a common misconception that JavaScript was influenced by an earlier Web page scripting language developed by Nombas named C– (not to be confused with the later C– created in 1997). Brendan Eich, however, had never heard of C– before he created LiveScript. Nombas did pitch their embedded Web page scripting to Netscape, though Web page scripting was not a new concept, as shown by the ViolaWWW Web browser. Nombas later switched to offering JavaScript instead of C– in their ScriptEase product and was part of the TC39 group that standardized ECMAScript.

You’re in good company if you use WordPress to publish on the web. Many famous blogs, news outlets, music sites, Fortune 500 companies and celebrities are using WordPress.

For example, famous blogs like Mashable and TechCrunch are both on WordPress. News outlets like The New York Times’ blogs and CNN’s on-air personality blogs all use WordPress, too.

If you’re ever curious about about who uses WordPress, head on over to the WordPress site showcase and you’ll be impressed by the number of well-known sites and famous people using WordPress to power their websites.

Now you’re probably asking, “how do I get it?”

WordPress is free. Yep, that’s right – it’s 100% free.

WordPress can be downloaded for self-hosted installations from WordPress.org or it can also be used as a hosted service via WordPress.com.

So, what are you waiting for? Go get WordPress today to start creating your awesome website.

Joomla’s primary focus has been on usability and extensibility since its initial release in 2005. It is because of this that the project has been the recipient of numerous awards, including being a three-time recipient of the PACKT Open Source Content Management System Award.

Joomla is a completely free open source solution available to anyone and everyone with a desire to build dynamic and robust sites for a variety of purposes. Joomla has been utilized by some of the Web’s most recognizable brands including Harvard, iHop, and MTV. It is capable of carrying out tasks ranging from corporate websites and blogs to social networks and e-commerce.

Joomla is backed by a large and active developer community. With thousands of unique and useful extensions and templates available, it is presently one of the largest single site building platforms available. It is this incredible community effort that makes Joomla a great choice for developers searching for a single platform with which they can receive active support from their peers.

It is important to think of Joomla not as a limited platform on which a specific type of site is built, but a robust set of tools that makes it possible to connect visitors to data in a variety of ways. Joomla’s extensive set of integrated technologies empowers site managers and developers to innovate well beyond the bounds of a simple website.

You can find out more about Joomla by visiting Joomla.org.

Joomla has a number of advantages over many of its competitors. In addition to being a full-featured CMS, it is easy to learn, quick to set up, and inexpensive.

Joomla is absolutely free. 100% free to use, regardless of your implementation. This is due, in part, to its non-corporate roots and volunteer-driven support structure. There are few bills the Joomla project needs to pay to keep up and running, and everyone that contributes to its development does so out of a passion for creating something that truly meets the needs of sites both large and small.

Joomla is open source, and that means no surprises will pop up once you have started your site. Every part of the Joomla platform is open for you to inspect and even modify to meet your site’s individual needs. Joomla’s extensive third-party development community has created thousands of plugins, extensions, templates, and other options to empower you to make the most of your site without having to be an expert in Web development.

You might be wondering why so many people contribute to Joomla only to make it available free to the public. The answer is, simply put, that there are a number of companies out there founded on the principal of providing premium software and services that work with the Joomla environment. These companies and individuals spend their days working with clients to help them turn their ambitious website concepts into reality. By night, they are frequently found contributing to the greater Joomla project in order to make the platform even better.

RocketTheme, for example, provides a number of useful and freely-available templates and extensions for Joomla while creating premium templates and applications for anyone wanting to kick their site up a notch without spending large amounts of time and money to do so.

Joomla is useful for a wide range of different site types and styles. In addition to being the largest Web software platform for government organizations around the world, it is utilized heavily for education, media, corporate, e-commerce, and even personal websites and blogs. It is extremely versatile.

One of its primary strengths is its usability. Whether you are a student just getting started in Web design or a retiree wanting to learn how to make a website, Joomla can be an excellent choice for you. You really do not need to know anything about programming or Web development to set up and customize a site, though you can tap into its open codebase to create something entirely original and unique. Want to make a custom module for your site that no other site on the Web has? You can do this with Joomla.

Types of sites that Drupal can be used for include:

blogs personal or corporate Web sites portals forums e-commerce sites intranets resource directories social networking sites. Drupal is written in the PHP programming language. The software is ready-to-use upon download and also includes a Web-based installer and add on modules. The software supports content management, collaborative authoring, newsletters, podcasts, image galleries, peer-to-peer networking, file uploads/downloads and more.

Drupal originated as a bulletin board system developed by Dries Buytaert in the Netherlands, and became an Open Source project in 2001. When establishing his original Drop.org Website, Buytaert wanted to call the site “dorp” (“village” in Dutch), but made a typo when checking the domain name, and decided the altered form sounded better (Drupal is a transliteration of the Dutch “druppel” which means droplet). Drupal has been downloaded over a million times and is the focus of a large development community.