In 2015, the ECMAScript committee released a major update of the JavaScript language. The browser makers are adding those much-needed features, meaning the V8 engine is adding those features as well. These features are making their way into Node.js starting with version 4.x.
Note
To learn about the current status of ES-2015 in Node.js, visit https://nodejs.org/en/docs/es6/.
By default, only the ES-2015 features which V8 considers stable are enabled. Further features can be enabled with command-line options. The almost complete features are enabled with the --es_staging
option. The features still in progress are enabled by the --harmony_destructuring
option. The website documentation gives more information.
The ES-2015 features make a big improvement in the JavaScript language. One feature, the Promise
class, should mean a fundamental rethinking of common idioms in Node.js programming. In ES-2016, a pair of new keywords, async
and await
,...