JavaScript : Industry Use Cases
JavaScript is the world’s most popular programming language.
It is a light-weight object-oriented programming language which is used by several websites for scripting the webpages. It is an interpreted, full-fledged programming language that enables dynamic interactivity on websites when applied to an HTML document.
Major Companies Are Using JavaScript
There’s no denying that JavaScript is everywhere, but just how are some of the world’s largest tech companies using JavaScript? For these companies, JavaScript is immensely important, and that doesn’t look like it’s going to change any time soon.
How doesn’t Google use JavaScript? Seriously, it’s everywhere. Google’s search results that spring up as your typing get there with JavaScript. The Gmail web client is powered by JavaScript. Google Docs? Yeah, that’s JavaScript too.
Google develops and usually open sources it’s own JavaScript tools. The most obvious example is AngularJS. Angular is used most prominently in Google’s DoubleClick advertising platform, but it’s also one of the most popular front end frameworks available. It’s even part of the MEAN stack.
Google’s more intensive services, like Google Docs, use Closure Tools. This set of tools compiles JavaScript into a lower-level faster form more suited for rich and highly responsive web applications.
There’s another big point to touch on. Google developed Chrome. Chrome, being a web browser, needed a JavaScript engine, so Google also made V8. V8 not only powers Chrome, it’s at the heart of NodeJS. So, without Google, there would be no Node.
You’re probably aware that Facebook uses JavaScript. It’s kind of hard to miss. What’s probably not as obvious is exactly how much JavaScript goes into making Facebook and how much Facebook is involved in JavaScript development.
Try disabling JavaScript in your web browser and going to Facebook. The website will actually stop you from logging in because it won’t work without JavaScript.
You may have noticed the way that Facebook loads. Each piece of the page is separate. Facebook has invented its own way of breaking down and delivering sections of JavaScript separately. In an odd way, each section of your Facebook page is a collection of independent JavaScript applications.
It doesn’t stop there. Facebook created React, one of the most popular front end frameworks. Facebook uses React on Facebook.com as well as Instagram and WhatsApp.
PayPal
PayPal has obviously been using JavaScript on the front end of their website for a long time, but that’s only the beginning.
The online payment giant was one of the earliest adopters of NodeJS. During an overhaul of their account overview page, they decided to try building the page in Node at the same time as their usual Java development. The NodeJS version worked out so well, that they chose to use it in production and build all client-facing applications in Node going forward. That means that most of what you see in your account is running on Node.
PayPal even went as far as to create and maintain their own version of Express, called KrakenJS. It’s pretty obvious that they like JavaScript over at PayPal.
Netflix
Like PayPal, Netflix started out using Java for just about everything. They too ran into problems with Java’s size and the time it required to develop.
Over time, Netflix moved away from its more traditional structure into the cloud and started to introduce NodeJS. With Node, Netflix was able to break down pieces of their user interface into individual services. This more distributed approach was able to speed things up an alleviate stress on their servers. Today, a large portion of Netflix’s interface is running on Node.
Uber
Uber needs to handle loads of data in real time. They have millions of requests coming in continuously, and that’s not just hits on a page. Uber needs to track driver locations, rider locations, and incoming ride requests. It has to seamlessly sort that data and match riders as fast as possible.
All of that plays to NodeJS’s and JavaScript’s strengths. Node is designed to handle requests and hand off data quickly. It’s asynchronous capabilities are a huge part of that. Node is central to Uber’s user facing stack for just that reason.
eBay
eBay’s story is a lot like Netflix’s. For a long time, just about everything in eBay’s tech stack was based on Java. A few years ago, eBay encountered a problem that Java wasn’t the right solution for. They decided to give NodeJS a shot instead.
Node worked so well that eBay not only kept using it for that particular service, they began migrating their entire user facing stack to NodeJS. Now, just about everything that you interact with on eBay is powered by Node. Sure, beneath Node, Java is still dealing with their databases, but eBay still places a lot of trust in NodeJS.
JavaScript Is Everywhere!
These companies are among the largest tech companies in the world. Many are also running the largest production deployments of NodeJS. The others are responsible for important parts of the JavaScript ecosystem as a whole.
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