4 ms·

I wish to register my complaint with the term "ES6" which has always been unofficial and refers to the official standard "EMCAScript2015".

BinaryIdiot 10y ago
Same. ECMA changed to using dates a while ago and people are still saying "ES6" and "ES7". I've also seen people refer to all new syntax and features as "ES6" including things that in ECMAScript2017. Honestly though I think ECMA has some of the blame for this. I don't think they do a very good job communicating changes and versioning.
- DarkTree 10y ago
  Yeah I think there is just a lot of friction when moving from the concise "ES6" to the lengthy, and somewhat awkward "ECMAScript2015". The fact that so many people still use the terms ES6 and ES7 gives others even less incentive to use the official naming scheme. Hopefully, it will iron itself out in the future.
  - joshowens 10y ago
    What did ES5 change to then? I never heard. Honestly, ES2015 just seems odd to me.
  - cloverich 10y ago
    I think its not just the length but the concept: Every other language has a normal looking version (Rust 1.12 announced! Java 8, etc). They had that with ES3, ES5, ES6, then decided (perhaps for very good reasons) to change to a unique (?) version scheme.
    - slavik81 10y ago
      C and C++ also use years. For example, C99 was standardized in 1999. C++11 was standardized in 2011.
- Swizec 10y ago
  In my experience ES6 means "modern". Anything that wasn't there before 2015. Considering we're encouraging everyone to use transpilers and features from the future, and that browsers will forever lag just a little bit behind, I don't think that's a super bad idea. Most programmers don't care exactly which features are in ECMAScript2015 and which are in ECMAScript2016 etc. All they care about is "Can I do this thing I saw in a code example? Oh cool, it works". Detailed versioning is an implementation detail.
  - BinaryIdiot 10y ago
    > Considering we're encouraging everyone to use transpilers and features from the future Please don't encourage this. Transpilers have a huge set of dependencies and technical complexity. I know everyone is in a hurry to use the next standard ASAP but, especially for new people, I think transpilers should be recommended against. Otherwise now you now need a build process and you need to learn how to use map files to properly debug back to your original code not to mention being unable to properly debug on older / alternative browsers. > Detailed versioning is an implementation detail. For the engine sure but for everyone who needs the features they need to know what is supported when, etc. It's far, far more than a simple implementation detail.
    - davidjnelson 10y ago
      It's a good point, they are complex. But on a team doing a complex spa, you'd need someone who's a tooling expert right?
      - BinaryIdiot 10y ago
        > But on a team doing a complex spa, you'd need someone who's a tooling expert right? I would argue no. Granted not everyone needs to be an expert on the tool chain and this ends up happening probably a majority of the time anyway but if most are ignorant how the tool chain works I don't think that's a good position to be in either. When a bug / misconfiguration issue rears its ugly head you need more than a few people being able to debug it. But even outside of that I think it's incredibly helpful for the developer to fully understand how something is going to be built and deployed.
- bcheung 10y ago
  Yeah, there's also that the naming convention has changed formats so many times in the last few years too. People need to see repeated pattern for it to sink in.
aczerepinski 10y ago
Three syllables vs eight.
austincheney 10y ago
ES6 refers to ECMAScript version 6, which was the official name of the latest version up until around December 2014. I believe ECMAScript 2015 was coined by Dominic Denicola to put additional pressure on TC39 to publish that year.
- triangleman 10y ago
  You are right, ES6 has a lot more traction than I thought. The reason I posted that was because I had a lot of trouble understanding what ES6 was referring to when I first started researching it, and it seemed like an amorphous standard with varying features depending on who you ask. But no, it's an actual standard published as "version 6". Incidentally I misspelled "ECMA" in my original comment, so now it's easier to see why it won't catch on anytime soon.
scelerat 10y ago
Can we just jump to "ES15" and get the advantages of both semantic correctness AND brevity?
EugeneOZ 10y ago
I think it's better to address complaints to not so smart decision of renaming well-known and widely adopted terms.
sgdesign 10y ago
"EMCAScript2015" is a mouthful, and I suspect a lot of people would assume it's referring to the "old" version of JavaScript just because it's not the current year. It might be the more "technically" correct name, but from a branding/marketing/communication point of view, ES6 is vastly superior in my opinion.

BinaryIdiot 10y ago

Same. ECMA changed to using dates a while ago and people are still saying "ES6" and "ES7". I've also seen people refer to all new syntax and features as "ES6" including things that in ECMAScript2017. Honestly though I think ECMA has some of the blame for this. I don't think they do a very good job communicating changes and versioning.

DarkTree 10y ago
Yeah I think there is just a lot of friction when moving from the concise "ES6" to the lengthy, and somewhat awkward "ECMAScript2015". The fact that so many people still use the terms ES6 and ES7 gives others even less incentive to use the official naming scheme. Hopefully, it will iron itself out in the future.
- joshowens 10y ago
  What did ES5 change to then? I never heard. Honestly, ES2015 just seems odd to me.
- cloverich 10y ago
  I think its not just the length but the concept: Every other language has a normal looking version (Rust 1.12 announced! Java 8, etc). They had that with ES3, ES5, ES6, then decided (perhaps for very good reasons) to change to a unique (?) version scheme.
  - slavik81 10y ago
    C and C++ also use years. For example, C99 was standardized in 1999. C++11 was standardized in 2011.
Swizec 10y ago
In my experience ES6 means "modern". Anything that wasn't there before 2015. Considering we're encouraging everyone to use transpilers and features from the future, and that browsers will forever lag just a little bit behind, I don't think that's a super bad idea. Most programmers don't care exactly which features are in ECMAScript2015 and which are in ECMAScript2016 etc. All they care about is "Can I do this thing I saw in a code example? Oh cool, it works". Detailed versioning is an implementation detail.
- BinaryIdiot 10y ago
  > Considering we're encouraging everyone to use transpilers and features from the future Please don't encourage this. Transpilers have a huge set of dependencies and technical complexity. I know everyone is in a hurry to use the next standard ASAP but, especially for new people, I think transpilers should be recommended against. Otherwise now you now need a build process and you need to learn how to use map files to properly debug back to your original code not to mention being unable to properly debug on older / alternative browsers. > Detailed versioning is an implementation detail. For the engine sure but for everyone who needs the features they need to know what is supported when, etc. It's far, far more than a simple implementation detail.
  - davidjnelson 10y ago
    It's a good point, they are complex. But on a team doing a complex spa, you'd need someone who's a tooling expert right?
    - BinaryIdiot 10y ago
      > But on a team doing a complex spa, you'd need someone who's a tooling expert right? I would argue no. Granted not everyone needs to be an expert on the tool chain and this ends up happening probably a majority of the time anyway but if most are ignorant how the tool chain works I don't think that's a good position to be in either. When a bug / misconfiguration issue rears its ugly head you need more than a few people being able to debug it. But even outside of that I think it's incredibly helpful for the developer to fully understand how something is going to be built and deployed.
bcheung 10y ago
Yeah, there's also that the naming convention has changed formats so many times in the last few years too. People need to see repeated pattern for it to sink in.

aczerepinski 10y ago

Three syllables vs eight.

austincheney 10y ago

ES6 refers to ECMAScript version 6, which was the official name of the latest version up until around December 2014. I believe ECMAScript 2015 was coined by Dominic Denicola to put additional pressure on TC39 to publish that year.

triangleman 10y ago
You are right, ES6 has a lot more traction than I thought. The reason I posted that was because I had a lot of trouble understanding what ES6 was referring to when I first started researching it, and it seemed like an amorphous standard with varying features depending on who you ask. But no, it's an actual standard published as "version 6". Incidentally I misspelled "ECMA" in my original comment, so now it's easier to see why it won't catch on anytime soon.

scelerat 10y ago

Can we just jump to "ES15" and get the advantages of both semantic correctness AND brevity?

EugeneOZ 10y ago

I think it's better to address complaints to not so smart decision of renaming well-known and widely adopted terms.

sgdesign 10y ago

"EMCAScript2015" is a mouthful, and I suspect a lot of people would assume it's referring to the "old" version of JavaScript just because it's not the current year. It might be the more "technically" correct name, but from a branding/marketing/communication point of view, ES6 is vastly superior in my opinion.