JS Versions

JavaScript was created by Brendan Eich in 1995 and became an ECMA standard in 1997.

The official name of the language is ECMAScript.

ECMAScript versions were initially labeled as ES1, ES2, ES3, ES5, and ES6.

Since 2016, versions have been named by year (e.g., ECMAScript 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020).

ECMAScript Editions

Ver	Official Name	Description
ES1	ECMAScript 1 (1997)	First edition
ES2	ECMAScript 2 (1998)	Editorial changes
ES3	ECMAScript 3 (1999)	Added regular expressions Added try/catch Added switch Added do-while
ES4	ECMAScript 4	Never released
ES5	ECMAScript 5 (2009)	Added “strict mode” Added JSON support Added String.trim() Added Array.isArray() Added Array iteration methods Allows trailing commas for object literals
ES6	ECMAScript 2015	Added let and const Added default parameter values Added Array.find() Added Array.findIndex()
	ECMAScript 2016	Added exponential operator (**) Added Array.includes()
	ECMAScript 2017	Added string padding Added Object.entries() Added Object.values() Added async functions Added shared memory Allows trailing commas for function parameters
	ECMAScript 2018	Added rest / spread properties Added asynchronous iteration Added Promise.finally() Additions to RegExp
	ECMAScript 2019	String.trimStart() String.trimEnd() Array.flat() Object.fromEntries Optional catch binding
	ECMAScript 2020	The Nullish Coalescing Operator (??)

This tutorial covers all versions of JavaScript:

ECMAScript versions 1 through 6 are fully supported in all modern browsers.