---
title: "Which came first, JavaScript or Python?"
description: "JavaScript vs Python: Python came first, by 4 years — 1991 against 1995. What happened in each case, and why the dates are often given differently."
url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/javascript-vs-python/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, JavaScript or Python?

**Which came first, JavaScript or Python?: Python**

1991 — 4 years before JavaScript

Python came first, by 4 years. Guido van Rossum released version 0.9.0 publicly.

## Side by side

|  | JavaScript | Python |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 1995 | 1991 |
| Date | — | 1991-02-20 |
| Category | technology | technology |
| What happened | Brendan Eich wrote it in ten days for Netscape Navigator. | Guido van Rossum released version 0.9.0 publicly. |

## JavaScript

JavaScript was written in about ten days in May 1995, shipped in Netscape Navigator 2.0 later that year, and was called LiveScript until December, when Netscape renamed it as part of a marketing deal with Sun. It has nothing to do with Java beyond some borrowed syntax. Standardisation as ECMAScript followed in 1997, and the language spent a decade being treated as a toy before it became the most widely deployed programming language in the world.

## Python

Python was started as a hobby project over Christmas 1989 and first released publicly in February 1991 — four years before Java, JavaScript, PHP and Ruby, all of which arrived in 1995. Most people assume it is much newer because its popularity arrived twenty years after it did. It is named after Monty Python, not the snake.

## Common questions

### Which came first, JavaScript or Python?

Python, by 4 years — 1991 against 1995.

### When did JavaScript start?

1995. Brendan Eich wrote it in ten days for Netscape Navigator.

### When did Python start?

1991. Guido van Rossum released version 0.9.0 publicly.

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## Sources

- Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation (https://www.wikidata.org/) [CC0 1.0]