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In 1991, Sun Microsystems launched a secretive project referred to within the organization as "The Green Project" (Sun Microsystems). The goal of "The Green Project", led by James Gosling, was the development of a device-independent programming language. Originally code named "Oak"; Java began life as a forward thinking attempt to facilitate the convergence of consumer electronics and computers (Sun Microsystems). In 1995, with interest in Java falling far short of Sun Microsystems' expectations, Netscape announced it would be incorporating support for Java technology into the Netscape Navigator Internet Browser (Champeon, 01).

In an attempt to make Netscape Navigator's new support for Java accessible to non-programmers who lacked knowledge and experience in object oriented software development, Netscape put Brendan Eich to work on a loosely based scripting language. The result was a new web development tool, originally know as "LiveScript" which took advantage of the benefits of object oriented programming but with a much simpler set of commands than Java. On December 4, 1995, Netscape and Sun jointly introduced JavaScript as a complement to both HTML and Java (Champeon, 01).

The actual similarities between Java and JavaScript are limited as both tools were developed independently by separate teams working without collaboration at independent firms. Both Java and JavaScript are object oriented languages (Burns). In addition, Java and JavaScript have many programming structures which appear very similar. Both Java and JavaScript can be used to create dynamic web pages.

The differences between Java and JavaScript are far more extensive than the similarities. For instance, Java can be used to create stand alone applications while JavaScript must be executed within and HTML document (Burns). As a true programming language, Java must be compiled into "Machine Language" before it can be run on a computer. JavaScript is essentially text which is read and executed by a web browser (Burns). JavaScript can be modified extensively and rerun through a browser at the discretion of a web developer. Java, once compiled must be recompiled in order to make a change to a Java application. Java is far more complex and geared toward application development (Burns). JavaScript is geared toward web development. Java and JavaScript can both be used to create dynamic web pages,