It looks like ECMAScript 6 introduces *lots* of new features [1]. At first I thought this was a joke, but a quick scan over the standard [2] appears to confirm this. Do not expect adoption by browsers for several years, though.
JavaScript, despite its flaws, used to be simple. But it seems a language has to be "multi-paradigm" these days to stay relevant. See C# >= 3.0, Scala, Swift and recent additions to C++. I call such languages "Frankenstein's Monster" languages because they cherry-pick features of their predecessors, sometimes in bizarre combinations, without advancing the art. Swift was especially disappointing; after all the hype of "a new programming language by Apple", Swift turned out to be prosaic. Now JavaScript is evolving into a typeless Scala, and becoming equally grotesque. Just look at this list of some of the new features for JavaScript: - modules (a la Pascal/Modula) - block scoping (a la structured languages) - class definitions and inheritance (a la OO languages) - property accessor functions (a la OO languages) - lambda expressions (a la functional languages) - pattern matching (a la functional languages) - iterators and generators (a la Python) - string interpolation (a la Perl and macro languages) - binary and octal literals (a la assembly and C) Some new features will at least make a few of those frameworks in the zoo obsolete. For example, mustache.js and handlebars.js should hopefully disappear if the new string interpolation feature is good enough. [1] http://es6-features.org [2] http://www.ecma-international.org/ecma-262/6.0 -- Thomas Koster On 25 August 2015 at 08:58, Greg Keogh <[email protected]> wrote: > I just wish there were some JS standards. Imagine flying on Air > JavaScript: you get to one of the dozens of airports on roads that have > peeled off old roads to other airports, then there are 16 wildly different > types of plane all claiming to get you to your destination somehow, some > planes can't fly without being towed by other planes, some planes are still > being assembled on the runways, some passengers have even brought their > favourite pieces of plane with them to help build a new plane once they > convince other passengers to join them. > > I still want to use TypeScript to run the show, mainly because of the > familiar IDE and its benefits. I'm going to spend more time today trying to > find guidance about how to structure a reasonably serious TS project, and > how to use jQuery from within. Web searches do produce a few possibly > useful results on this subject, but they all get tangled in dependencies on > other JS libraries and I my eyes glaze over at the hurdle. > > *Greg* >
