1The New Toys in ES2015–ES2020, and Beyond
JavaScript has changed a lot in the last few years.
If you were an active JavaScript developer in the 2000s, for a while there you could be forgiven for thinking JavaScript was standing still. After the 3rd Edition specification in December 1999, developers were waiting fully 10 years for the next edition of the specification. From the outside, it seemed like nothing was happening. In fact, lots of work was being done; it just wasn't finding its way into the official specification and multiple JavaScript engines. We could (but won't) spend an entire chapter—if not a book—on what various different groups in important positions vis-à-vis JavaScript were doing and how they couldn't agree on a common path forward for some time. The key thing is that they ultimately did agree on a way forward, at a fateful meeting in Oslo in July 2008 after much advance negotiation. That common ground, which Brendan Eich (creator of JavaScript) later called Harmony, paved the way for the 5th Edition specification in December 2009 (the 4th Edition was never completed), ...
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