Introduction

The digital transformation market has been rapidly growing, with no signs of slowing down, despite changing global market conditions.

According to Grand View Research

The global digital transformation market size was evaluated at USD 731.13 billion in 2022 and is anticipated to witness a CAGR of 26.7% from 2023 to 2030. The market growth can be attributed to the growing adoption of cutting-edge technologies such as cloud, big data analytics, and Artificial Intelligence (AI), among others, which has caused in the exponential growth of all size of businesses across the globe.

Software, in any shape or form, is at the heart of this growth. If you're a business owner or decision maker, it's essential to do your due diligence and understand the key technologies that are likely to shape your business's future. One of these technologies is Javascript.

Origin of Javascript (The Language of the Web)

In the early days of the web, websites used to be static. This means that sites had little to no interaction, and users would view websites as a source of information rather than an interactive interface that can do work, like a desktop application.

Until 1995, websites were built using only HTML and CSS. To help understand this with no technical background, let's draw an analogy between a human and a website:

• HTML gives structure to the website, like how a skeleton gives structure to a human.
• CSS decides the appearance of that structure, like how skin and external traits make up the visual appearance of a human.

However, this analogy falls short of capturing the true potential of a website, which is to be interactive. This is where Javascript comes in:

• Javascript allows websites to react to changes, like how muscles enable a human to move.
• Javascript allows websites to run business logic, like how the nervous system enables a human to think.

Thus, Javascript was created as a language for adding interactivity and business logic to websites.

It's worth noting that Java and Javascript are two completely unrelated languages. Java has an entirely different ecosystem, different use cases, and is not interchangeable with Javascript by any means.

Present of Javascript

In 2007, Jeff Atwood, the co-founder of Stack Overflow - the largest knowledge base for software developers - joked that "Any application that can be written in Javascript will eventually be written in Javascript." 28 years after the birth of the language, this joke is slowly becoming a reality. As the impact of the web has grown, so has Javascript's impact along with it.

With companies like Meta, Google, Amazon, Netflix, and the entire IT industry heavily betting on it, Javascript had to become capable of doing quite complex things on the frontend. These tech giants invested billions to make Javascript faster and better. As a result, the language became more capable, enabling it to be a widely used language that escaped the browser.

Since Javascript is the only language that can be used to program the web, every software developer should be familiar with it to some extent if they want to deliver to the web. This is especially true as applications tend to become more and more frontend heavy. If the frontend (the user's machine) does the job, the server (the business's machine) doesn't have to, which saves resources and improves interaction time (no roundtrip to the server).

In fact, it is impossible to create a web frontend without Javascript. (Note for developers: even if you use any language that compiles to WebAssembly, you still need to access the DOM through Javascript.)

Javascript has been the most widely used programming language for the last 10 years consecutively. To back these claims, check out Stack Overflow's 2022 Developer Survey.

Use Cases of Javascript in 2023

• Web Frontend Development: everything that happens in the browser
• Backend Development: develop server-side code that can run on pretty much any machine for any kind of business application, including various sorts of digital transformation
• Mobile App Development
• Desktop App Development
• Blockchain Solutions (like using HardHat alongside Solidity for smart contract development & testing)
• AI Solutions (like running AI models on the frontend, or creating complex recommendation engines on the backend)
• IoT Solutions (like gathering information from factory hardware, or controlling your intelligent lightbulb)
• and many, many more

What does all of that mean from a business perspective?

Business Advantages of Using Javascript

Massive Developer Community

Javascript has the largest and most active developer community, with a plethora of resources, tools, and frameworks available to make development faster and easier.

Fast Iteration

Javascript's versatility and ease of use enable developers to rapidly prototype and iterate on their ideas, which can help businesses stay competitive in a rapidly evolving market.

Cross-Platform Development

With the rise of mobile and web applications, cross-platform development has become increasingly important for businesses looking to reach a wider audience. Javascript's ability to run on both the frontend and backend, as well as mobile and desktop platforms, makes it an ideal choice for businesses looking to develop cross-platform solutions.

Scalability

As a project grows, so does the codebase, and it becomes increasingly important to ensure that the code is scalable and maintainable. Javascript, with its various libraries and frameworks, provides developers with the necessary tools to build scalable and maintainable applications.

Cost-Effectiveness

Javascript is a cost-effective solution for businesses, as it is an open-source language with a vast developer community that provides a wide range of free tools, libraries, and frameworks.

Improved User Experience

With Javascript, developers can create interactive, engaging, and responsive user interfaces that improve the overall user experience, leading to higher user satisfaction and retention.

Integration with Other Technologies

Javascript can be easily integrated with other technologies, such as APIs, databases, and cloud services, making it an ideal choice for businesses that need to integrate their applications with other technologies.

Key Javascript Related Technologies

Typescript

A language that extends Javascript with a type system and compiles to Javascript. It makes Javascript codebases more scalable, extensible, and less error-prone, backed by Microsoft.

NodeJS

An executing context of Javascript on the backend, decoupled from the browser. It enables developers to build server-side applications using Javascript, which makes it easier to maintain a consistent codebase across the entire stack.

React

A frontend framework that makes it easier to implement and maintain user interfaces. It uses a component-based architecture that helps developers build reusable UI components, which can improve development speed and code quality.

NextJS

An extended (meta) framework of React that enables developers to use React (therefore Javascript) for advanced web development. Sites built with NextJS are really performant, SEO friendly and scalable with a lot of integrations that make development faster.

React Native

A mobile framework that enables developers to use Javascript for building mobile apps with a shared codebase for both iOS and Android instead of a separate codebase for each platform. It allows for faster development times and easier maintenance of the codebase, as well as providing access to native device features. Also, it enables your app's business logic to be updated without having to resubmit your app to the store, with services like EAS Updates or Codepush. That results in quicker critical bug fixes and better UX than native apps.

Electron

A desktop framework that enables developers to use Javascript for building desktop apps with a shared codebase for Windows, MacOS, and Linux. It allows for the development of cross-platform desktop apps with a native look and feel, using web technologies.

When Not to Use Javascript

From a business perspective, there are three critical reasons that come to mind when considering options other than Javascript: performance, ecosystem, and lack of hardware resources.

Performance-Heavy Use Cases

If the solution to be developed is highly performance-intensive, faster alternatives such as Go or Rust for backend applications or native code (Kotlin/Swift/C++) for mobile applications should be used. However, in most cases, the performance-heavy parts can be encapsulated to their own scope, and Javascript can be used for the rest, combining the best of both worlds. For instance, integrating native code with React Native or using a microservice for a particular task.

Ecosystem

If the solution to be developed is specific to a particular niche, it might be better to use a more mature ecosystem for the given task. For example, if it's a backend solution that involves AI, it would be worth considering Python that has the best ecosystem for AI solutions. However, it can still be encapsulated within its own scope, such as with a microservice, and the rest of the application can still be written in Javascript.

Lack of Hardware Resources

If the solution to be developed needs to run on limited resources such as microcontrollers, using a compiled language that doesn't require an engine to execute, like NodeJS does, might be a better option. However, for some of these situations, we can still use Javascript with a highly optimized executing context, like JerryScript. If the solution is good enough, but the codebase is simpler, that can be a good tradeoff.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Javascript is an essential technology for modern software development. It's versatile, easy to learn, and widely adopted, making it an ideal choice for businesses looking to build web, mobile, desktop, AI, IoT, and many other types of applications.

The key takeaway: the result codebase will surely be understood by developers 10 years from now, therefore it's more extensible and cheaper to extend than codebases using other languages.

By leveraging Javascript, businesses can benefit from faster development cycles, lower development costs, and a larger talent pool, which ultimately translates into better products and services, increased customer satisfaction, and higher revenue.

So, if you're a decision maker looking to invest in technology that can drive your business forward, Javascript is a safe bet that can deliver results both now and in the future.

Thank you for reading this guide, and I hope you found it helpful in making an informed decision about the role of Javascript in your business. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to reach out to me anytime.