June 17, 2015
JavaScript ES6 standardized
On June 17, 2015, the ES6 standard was adopted — adding classes, modules, arrow functions, promises, and block-scoped variables to JavaScript.
What it was for
ES6 (also called ES2015) modernized JavaScript for large apps: `import`/`export` for splitting code into files, `class` syntax, arrow functions, promises for async work, and `let`/`const` instead of leaky `var`. It made building ReactA JavaScript library for building UIs — component trees and declarative rendering for the web.-scale frontends and Node.jsA JavaScript runtime built on V8 — event-driven I/O for servers, CLIs, and tooling. services feel like a modern language instead of a hack.
Why it's here
ES6 was the biggest JavaScript update since 1999 — the release that made modern frontend frameworks possible.
Why it mattered
Developers finally got modules, classes, and proper scoping that other languages had had for years — without giving up JavaScript's ubiquity in the browser.
What it solved
JavaScript felt stuck in the 1990s for large codebases; teams were bolting on workarounds until the language itself caught up.
Media
- ImageECMAScript
Andrejus Ševcovas, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Related
- JavaScript name announced by Netscape and SunDecember 4, 1995
- JavaScript ES5 standardizedDecember 3, 2009
- Babel transpiler first releasedSeptember 28, 2014