Introduction to simulation using JavaScript

JavaScript is a dynamic functional object-oriented programming language that can not only be used for enriching a web page, but also for implementing various kinds of web applications, including web-based simulations, which can be executed on front-end devices, such as mobile phones, tablets and desktop computers, as well as on powerful back-end computers, possibly in some cloud infrastructure. Although JavaScript cannot compete with strongly typed compiled languages (such as C++, Java and C#) on speed, it provides sufficient performance for many types of simulations and outperforms its competitors on ease of use and developer productivity, especially for web-based simulation. This tutorial provides a two-fold introduction: (1) to JavaScript programming using the topic of simulation, and (2) to simulation using the programming language JavaScript. It shows how to implement a Monte Carlo simulation, a continuous state change simulation and a discrete event simulation, using the power of JavaScript and the web.