Ecmascript is the standard upon which JS is based. ECMAScript is often abbreviated to ES.
TC39 is a committee that evolves JS. They are responsible for updating JS. This committee exist of employees from multiple organizations that are involveld with JS. (Apple, Mozilla, Google, Paypal etc,). They meet about once a month to discuss improvements.
| Edition | Official name | Date published |
|---|---|---|
| ES.Next | ES.Next | Future |
| ES11 (cur ES.Next) | ES2020 | Summer 2020? |
| ES10 | ES2019 | Summer 2019 |
| ES9 | ES2018 | June 2018 |
| ES8 | ES2017 | June 2017 |
| ES7 | ES2016 | June 2016 |
| ES6 | ES2015 | June 2015 |
| ES5.1 | ES5.1 | June 2011 |
| ES5 | ES5 | December 2009 |
| ES4 | ES4 | Abandoned |
| ES3 | ES3 | December 1999 |
| ES2 | ES2 | June 1998 |
| ES1 | ES1 | June 1997 |
- JS is backward compatible. This means that old JS code will always be valid in newer versions. This is hard to commit to. Once something is in JS it won't be removed.
- JS isn't forward compatible like HTMl. This means that new additions to the language would not cause an older version, that doesn't know this update, to break. The unknown code will just be ignored.
- Interpreted script: code will run untill it encounters an error
- compiled program: code won't run initially if there is a bug