Javascript Standard
// JavaScript - The standards:
Netscape initially named as LiveScript, and released in 1995 by Netscape, and
a year later, was renamed as JavaScript hoping to capitalize on Java's
popularity at that time, but JavaScript has no actual relationship with Java.
In 1996, Netscape submitted JavaScript to ECMA International for standardization.
This eventually resulted in a new language standard labeled ECMAScript. All
major implementation have actually been implementation of the ECMAScript
standard, but the term JavaScript has stuck for historical and marketing
reasons. In the real world, ECMAScript is used to refer to the standard, while
JavaScript is used when talking about the language in practice.
ECMAScript 3 was released in 1999.
ECMAScript 4 was completely abandoned.
ECMAScript 5 was released in 2009.
The new standard was originally named ES.Harmony before it was referred to as
ECMAScript 6th Edition (ES6). In 2015, TC39, the committee responsible for
drafting the ECMAScript specifications, made the decision to move to a yearly
model for defining new standards, where new features would be added as they
were approved, rather than drafting complete planned out specs that would only
be finalized when all features were ready. As the result, ES6 was renamed to
ECMAScript 2015.
Going forward, we may hear names such as ES2017 or ES2018, but we may
also hear names such as ES7 or ES8, but ES2017 may not be the same as ES7
because ES7 actually refer to the 7th edition of the standard instead of the
yearly standard. I think that the JavaScript community should not use the
names such as ES7 or ES8 because those standards are not yet written, and
use the yearly naming convention instead.
ES.Next was also used to imply ECMAScript Proposals for things that are being
proposed but are not yet approved to be part of the standard.
page revision: 2, last edited: 30 Dec 2016 17:46