Let's sort out some confusion

Java is not the same as JavaScript

[DrDoc]

Over and over again I see JavaScript referred to as "Java". But, that is not correct. Java and JavaScript have not much in common except for similar names.

[google.com...]

[Rambo Tribble]

DrDoc, I'm afraid that this one will never sink in with the general public, or even many dilletante web designers. The best is to grin and bear it, while pointing out the error to those who make it, when they make it.

[jatar_k]

I'm with you DrDoc, it drives me crazy.

[victor]

Yep, it's annoying. But you can usually suss the meaning from the context.

Like calling HTML, XML; or C++, C; or CSS selectors, tags.

[Purple Martin]

Another really annoying one is "alt tag". alt is an attribute!

[ppg]

Amen Dr. Doc

>or even many dilletante web designers
It never ceases to amaze that even some competent web people seem to use the two terms interchangeably.

Java seems to me to be much misunderstood and maligned in the wider web community. There seems to be a certain amount of prejudice against Java in some circles, from people who are otherwise very knowlegable too. I mean, you get prejudice against MS & their technologies but thats fair enough because MS is evil and their products are rubbish (joke!).

I'm a johnny-come-lately who only started programming when Java 2 was out. I wonder sometimes if highly competent "old-guard" Perl programmers eventually had enough of the new Java evangelists telling them that their skills were out of date and Java was going to take over the world, and that translated into a dislike of Java.

Fair enough really if thats the case.

Another thing that really annoys me is people hijacking threads with their own personal agenda. I mean, its outrageous ;-)

[Rambo Tribble]

Those who run down Java and JavaScript prototypically have no class(es). Objectively speaking, of course.

(All puns intended)

[choster]

I imagine at least some of the people who say "Java" when they mean "Javascript" are doing so as an abbreviation, especially since desktop Java (like server-side Javascript) is relatively rare nowadays. We ought to popularize "js" instead.

[Rambo Tribble]

I'm sure another source of the confusion is that Java programs, when packaged as applets or JSP's, are sometimes referred to as "scripts". Who can blame the neophyte for confusing "Java scripts" and "JavaScript"?

If blame must be assigned, (and, really, it needn't), look to Netscape and Sun for their collaboration and, perhaps, to Brendan Eich, for his complicity.

Maybe there is just cause for changing the name to ECMAscript.