[BrendanEich]

I've spoken and written about the early days, e.g., here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aX3ZABCdC38

Friends from SGI recruited me (second attempt) in March 1995, I joined in early April but in the server group. I thought a lot -- but worked too little due to server commitments -- during the month of April, about "the scripting language" which was suggested to be Scheme when I was being recruited, but which by the time I joined could not be Scheme, due to the impending Java deal between Netscape and Sun.

Java meant either no scripting language, or a kid-brother language, which meant C-like syntax, primitive vs. object types as in Java, and other unfortunate consequences.

When I transferred to the client group in early May, I had to produce a demo very quickly. I chose first class functions and (barefly there at first) prototypes as the building blocks. The rest is history.

[collinmanderson]

So it sounds roughly one month of thinking and researching, then 10 days of coding?

[BrendanEich]

That's what I wrote, yeah. With constraints going from "Come do Scheme!" to "make it look like Java" and even "feel like Java" because interop, via what we hoped would come, and did in Netscape 3, as a JS/Java bridge called LiveConnect.

The Belgium Post built a whole web app+service architecture on LiveConnect.

Think of LiveConnect as "Active Scripting" on MS's platform, which enabled Java components to be developed and glued together by JS.

[collinmanderson]

Thanks!