Unicode support out of the box utf16 support, which isn't the same thing: https://mathiasbynens.be/notes/javascript-unicode https://mathiasbynens.be/notes/java

Unicode support out of the box utf16 support, which isn't the same thing: https://mathiasbynens.be/notes/javascript-unicode https://mathiasbynens.be/notes/javascript-unicode easy manipulation of strings, arrays, and dictionaries JS objects aren't dictionaries; all keys are coerced to strings, they lack basic operations like getting a list of keys or values, and iterating over keys can bite you if you forget hasOwnProperty. Python comes pretty close, with slightly wonky scoping and Unicode bolted on And equality operators that aren't utterly insane, a usable standard library, local rather than global scope by default, classes, namespaces, modules... ES6 does look a like a large improvement. Mainly because it fixes misfeatures and adds capabilities that better languages dealt with years ago.