JavaScript 'main offender in poor website performance'

Websites that run particularly slowly on users' computers are likely to be able to blame object scripting language JavaScript for this, an expert has said.

Speaking at Microsoft's Tech Ed event earlier this week, Steve Souders of Google explained that while many attribute poor website performance on their web hosting server, the downloading and execution of JavaScript within the browser is likely to be the main culprit.

He noted that this is particularly the case when it comes to today's rich websites, which tend to be reliant on AJAX, Computerworld reports.

However, current and upcoming versions of the major browsers aim to resolve this by downloading JavaScript while executing it, including Internet Explorer 8 and the upcoming Firefox 3.5 and Chrome 2.0.

"The first generation of web browsers decided that because they had to execute all of the JavaScript files in order, we might as well execute one while stopping all other downloads," Mr Souders said.

JavaScript was originally developed by Netscape and is used in millions of website pages and server applications around the world.

Written by Dipika Patel