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You have completed The Landscape of JavaScript!
You have completed The Landscape of JavaScript!
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Did you know that there are different varieties (or flavors) of JavaScript? In this video, you'll get to know common JavaScript flavors available to developers.
"Vanilla, plain or pure" JavaScript
"Non-vanilla" flavors of JavaScript
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Now that you know more about how
EcmaScript came about, how JavaScript
0:00
evolved, and who decides on what features
get added to the language, let's
0:04
talk about the different types or flavors
of JavaScript available to developers.
0:08
You'll often hear terms like Vanilla
JavaScript, Plain, or Pure JavaScript.
0:12
They all mean the same thing, the use
of JavaScript without any frameworks or
0:16
libraries.
0:20
It's how developers refer to native,
standards-based JavaScript.
0:21
You learn that ES5, or ECMAScript 5,
is an earlier version of JavaScript
0:25
that's implemented in all browsers,
and ES2015 is the evolution of ES5.
0:30
It's now the established standard for
writing modern JavaScript.
0:36
Now after the release of
ES 2015 the TC39 Committee
0:40
decided to iterate more often and
consistently.
0:45
So as of 2016 the JavaScript language
has continued to evolve year after year,
0:48
with smaller releases of the language.
0:54
A new version of ECMAScript gets released
every year with any new features that
0:56
are ready at that time.
1:00
The feature versions are referred
to as ES2016, ES2017,
1:02
and ESNext for versions of ECMAScript
that have not been released.
1:06
JavaScript also comes in other non-vanilla
forms, like a Type Checker, for example.
1:11
Developers use type checking languages
in libraries like TypeScript and
1:16
Flow in favor of pure JavaScript,
because they help catch mistakes early and
1:20
identify certain types of problems
before they run their code.
1:24
TypeScript, developed by Microsoft,
is a super set of JavaScript,
1:28
meaning it's a layer around JavaScript
that contains extra features and syntax.
1:32
TypeScript also offers support for
the latest evolving JavaScript features
1:37
while making your code more readable and
descriptive.
1:42
The browser cannot understand
a file written in TypeScript, so
1:44
TypeScript needs to get translated or
1:48
compiled to standard JavaScript
code that can run on any browser.
1:50
And Flow, develop by Facebook, is an open
source type checking library that
1:54
makes developing apps more maintainable,
and
1:59
performs error checking to make it
harder to introduce bugs in your code.
2:01
Flow gives you realtime feedback
on the state of your code.
2:05
For example, it checks the expected
data type of any value, like
2:09
if the return type of a function should be
a number, string, or boolean, and more.
2:13
Other languages and
2:17
types of JavaScript that use a different
syntax are CoffeeScript and Dart.
2:18
CoffeeScript is a simple language that
adds syntactic sugar to JavaScript,
2:22
which means that it was designed to make
JavaScript easier to read in Express,
2:28
with a clear and concise syntax.
2:31
CoffeeScript is not
understood by browsers, so
2:33
it also gets compiled to
standard JavaScript, and
2:36
Dart is an object-oriented programming
language developed by Google.
2:40
Developers use Dart to create complex and
highly scalable apps for
2:44
the Web, mobile devices, and for
Internet of things or IoT devices.
2:47
Dart was even approved
as a standard by Ecma.
2:52
Like JavaScript,
2:54
Ecma International formed a technical
committee to work on standardizing Dart.
2:56
While Dart uses a special syntax
that's different than pure JavaScript,
3:00
it can be translated to standard
JavaScript to be used in a browser.
3:05
I just wanted to mention the different
types of JavaScript here so
3:09
that if you come across terms like ES5,
ES2015, TypeScript or
3:12
CoffeeScript you will know that it's
all just referring to JavaScript.
3:17
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