Both of these are computer languages that help in programming, but there is a major difference between JavaScript and HTML. While JavaScript (abbreviated as JS) is a scripting language, HTML is a markup language.
We use HTML to create web pages or web applications. We can also embed JS programs in the form of scripts in the HTML code. This converts the overall static form of the web content into a dynamic form, i.e., it modifies the content on the web pages without having to reload it. Thus, the content would keep changing in real-time, like in those cryptocurrency websites.
Hence, JavaScript is a very high-level scripting language. It is prototypal inheritance-based and dynamic in nature, supporting event-driven, object-oriented, and highly functional programming. You can find the JS programs in almost all new and avant-garde browsers and websites.
In this article, we will discuss the primary difference between JavaScript and HTML. But before we do that, let us know a bit more about each of these in detail.
What is JavaScript?
It is a programming language conforming to the specification of ECMAScript. Often abbreviated as JS, JavaScript is a scripting language of high level that can be used to insert some dynamic texts into the HTML code. Thus, it is also called the browser’s language. Netscape introduced it for running on a web browser’s client-side. Branden Eich designed the JS, and it first appeared back in 1995. The ECMA group (European Computer Manufacturers Association) standardised it and also maintained it; thus, it was initially named ECMAScript as a standard.
To interpret the JS code and run it in a program, one would always require the JS engine. These days, a majority of web browsers have this JS engine on both server-side as well as client-side.
What is HTML?
The term HTML is an abbreviation for HyperText Markup Language. HTML is basically the building block of the basics of the web that defines the structure and meaning of the web content. It’s a combination of the hypertext along with the markup language, where the hypertext defines the link present between the various web pages in the website.
The HTML language was released back in 1993. The latest version of HTML, as of now, is HTML 5.2, and the extensions can be either .htm or .html, where we most commonly use the .html extension.
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) developed HTML along with the Web Hypertext App Tech Working Group (WHATWG). We can also modify the look and make HTML web pages look better when we include Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). The W3C maintains the CSS. It makes the overall look and feel of web pages better and richer by including or loading the contents in an HTML web page.
Difference between JavaScript and HTML
Let us talk about the differences between JavaScript and HTML. To make this topic more understandable and clear, we are comparing both of the terms based on their individual characteristics in a table.
| Parameters | JavaScript | HTML |
| Basics | It’s a high-level language (scripting language) that was introduced by Netscape for running on a web browser’s client-side. It is a very advanced language used in programming that makes any web page more dynamic and interactive. | It is the basic building block that makes up the web, that defines the structure and meaning of the content available on the web. In simpler words, it is a standardised markup language used for providing a website with its primary structure. |
| Interactiveness and Visual Appeal | It makes a website appear and feel better by adding dynamic content to it that appears on the web pages without having to reload them. | It only works on how a website would look without adding any interactive effects. You can add some static effects to make your website look more appealing with HTML. |
| Content Manipulation | The content can be manipulated for creating dynamic pages with JavaScript. The page can be dynamic and interactive in real-time. | We cannot manipulate the content present on a web page with HTML- it will be static. |
| Purpose | We use the JS to make pages more interactive for visitors, like in weather forecast websites or cryptocurrency update pages. | HTML is mainly used to define a web page’s basic structure and layout. |
| Client-side and Server-Side | It is a very advanced language that uses the JavaScript code and JS engine, something which is available on a majority of web browsers these days on the server-side and client-side. | It is rendered from a website’s server-side scripting. |
| Cross-Browser Compatibility | It is not compatible with every browser, as some of the JS functions may run differently on different browsers. | It is compatible with all browsers. It not only runs smoothly on every browser but also works well with any new updates or versions. |
| Complexity | It is more complex because it offers more interactive features. Learning JavaScript takes more time and effort. | It is very simple to understand, learn, and implement since it offers very basic features. |
| Embedding | We can embed the JavaScript inside an HTML code in the form of a script. | We cannot embed the HTML code inside JavaScript. |
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