ECMAScript is a scripting language, standardized by Ecma International in the ECMA-262 specification. The language is widely used on the web, and is often erroneously referred to as JavaScript or JScript, after two major dialects of the specification.
JavaScript was originally developed by Brendan Eich of Netscape under the name Mocha, later LiveScript, and finally renamed to JavaScript. In December 1995 Sun Microsystems and Netscape announced JavaScript in a press release. In March 1996 Netscape Navigator 2.0 was out, featuring support for JavaScript.
Due to the wide-spread success of JavaScript as a client-side scripting language for web pages, Microsoft developed a compatible language known as JScript. JScript added new date methods to fix the Y2K non-compliant methods in JavaScript, which were based on java.util.Date. JScript was included in Internet Explorer 3.0, released in August 1996.
Netscape submitted JavaScript to Ecma International for standardization; the work on the specification, ECMA-262, began in November 1996. The first edition of ECMA-262 was adopted by the ECMA General Assembly of June 1997.
ECMAScript is the name of the scripting language standardized in ECMA-262. Both JavaScript and JScript aim to be compatible with ECMAScript, while providing additional features not described in the ECMA specification.
The name "ECMAScript" was a compromise between the organizations involved in standardizing the language, especially Netscape and Microsoft. Brendan Eich, the creator of JavaScript, is on record as saying that "ECMAScript was always an unwanted trade name that sounds like a skin disease."
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