Advancing Node.js with ECMAScript 2015, 2016, 2017, and beyond

In 2015, the ECMAScript committee released a long-awaited major update of the JavaScript language. The update brought in many new features to JavaScript, such as Promises, arrow functions, and class objects. The language update sets the stage for improvement since it should dramatically improve our ability to write clean, understandable JavaScript code.

The browser makers are adding those much-needed features, meaning the V8 engine is adding those features as well. These features are making their way to Node.js, starting with version 4.x.

To learn about the current status of ES2015/2016/2017/and so on in Node.js, visit https://nodejs.org/en/docs/es6/.

By default, only the ES2015, 2016, and 2017 features that V8 considers stable are enabled by Node.js. Further features can be enabled with command-line options. The almost-complete features are enabled with the --es_staging option. The website documentation gives more information...