Preface

JavaScript permeates the development landscape like few languages before it. Since the introduction of the Node.js run-time in May of 2009, it has ventured far beyond the browser. It now works with controllers on a Raspberry Pi, as the scripting language for 3D video games that run on desktop computers, running web servers that serve millions of page views a day, and, of course, it is the dominant language for web browsers. It is possible that JavaScript is the most important programming language in the world.

The ECMAScript standard has been around almost as long as JavaScript. However, in the last few years, it has seen a flurry of activity. ES6, published in 2015, created an almost completely new language. Since then, the updates have been more gradual, but still significant. This book covers the standard up to ES8 (released in 2017). We'll discuss how to use some of its new features to organize programs more effectively and write better code.