The only thing they have in common is their name. marijnnn explained it very well I think.

I think these two languages are not comparable, because they are intended to different things:
JavaScript is a typical scripting language. JavaScript statements are executed into the browser on client side.
But Java is object-oriented language for server-based- and standalone- applications as well as for applets.
I agree that many statements in these languages look very similar, but they are used on different layers.

However, we can compare JavaScript implementation of business logic with JSP-based implementation, becouse we have sometimes the choice how to implement the busines logic - with JavaScript or with JSP!
For example, we can validate data on server side (using Java) as well as on client side (using JavaScript).
If we respect security, we need to validate data on server side only.
But for non-secure application, we can implement the similar bussines logic on client side, using JavaScript - this implementation will work quicklier. So, it is one of the ways to improve performance.


Applet is a Java application. So, every applet contains not only its own source code, but also uses classes from different Java packages (java.lang.* etc.)
Are we able to convert methods of Java classes into JavaScript functions???
Probably it is possible, but it is a very time-consumed job!
I think it is not good idea to re-use source code of applets in Javascripts. It is easier to create new scripts from scratch!

This post has been edited by java-area: Feb 23 2008, 04:39 AM

java vs js
javascript vs java

Some people here are a bit confused..



Javascript is a client side browser scripting language where execution occurs on the client (Firefox). Java is an enterprise programming language used to build business applications. There should be no comparison between the two because they are totally different and have completely different uses.