EcmaScript is backwards compatible so you don't need to adopt the entire list of new shiny features at once. You can still continue to develop in your usual ES5

EcmaScript is backwards compatible so you don't need to adopt the entire list of new shiny features at once. You can still continue to develop in your usual ES5 syntax and add a few ES6/7 features as you learn them. In my case, I started with let/const and arrow functions. Then I added classes and hit a few walls, mainly because I hadn't read/understood much about arrow functions and the context they get bound to. After you start to use those, I think everything comes naturally (e.g. realising that the feature that allows you to import {foo, bar} from 'baz' is the same one that allows you to do var {foo, bar} = baz; Deconstruction is very handy, especially when you pass around big config variables and you only need a few bits from it. Not needing to use a promise library for async code is also great. Mixing up async/await with it is something I hadn't thought of until I read this article. You slowly begin to adopt language features as you find them useful. It's not an all in or all out situation so I think the barrier to adoption is very, very low.