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JavaScript History

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JavaScript / ECMAScript

JavaScript was created by Brendan Eich in 1995.

It was created for Netscape 2 and became the ECMA-262 standard in 1997.

After Netscape gave JavaScript to ECMA, Mozilla kept working on it for Firefox. The newest version from Mozilla was 1.8.5.(Identical to ES5).

The initial browser to back ECMA-262 Edition 1 (ES1) was Internet Explorer (IE4).

Year ECMABrowser
1995   Brendan Eich created JavaScript.
1996   Netscape 2 came out, featuring JavaScript 1.0.
1997   JavaScript is now officially recognized as a standard by ECMA (ECMA-262).
1997 ES1 ECMAScript 1 came out.
1997 ES1 IE 4 was the initial web browser that backed ES1.
1998 ES2 ECMAScript 2 became available.
1998   Netscape 42 came out, featuring JavaScript 1.3.
1999 ES2 IE 5 was the initial web browser to enable ES2.
1999 ES3 ECMAScript 3 got published.
2000 ES3 IE 5.5 was the initial web browser to endorse ES3.
2000   Netscape 62 came out, featuring JavaScript 1.5.
2000   The first version of Firefox came out, and it included JavaScript 1.5.
2008 ES4 ECMAScript 4 was dropped.
2009 ES5 ECMAScript 5 came out.
2011 ES5 Internet Explorer 9 was the initial web browser to provide compatibility for ES5 *.
2011 ES5 The fourth version of Firefox came out, featuring JavaScript 1.8.5.
2012 ES5 Safari 6 fully supports ES5.
2012 ES5 IE 10 fully supports ES5.
2012 ES5 Chrome 23 fully supports ES5.
2013 ES5 Firefox 21 fully supports ES5.
2013 ES5 Opera 15 fully supports ES5.
2014 ES5 All browsers fully support ES5.
2015 ES6 ECMAScript 6 came out.
2016 ES6 Chrome 51 fully supports ES6.
2016 ES6 Opera 38 fully supports ES6.
2016 ES6 Safari 10 fully supports ES6.
2017 ES6 Firefox 54 fully supports ES6.
2017 ES6 Edge 15 fully supports ES6.
2018 ES6 Every web browser fully supports ES6.

Note

Internet Explorer 9 could not handle ES5 "use strict" mode.

** Internet Explorer 11 cannot handle ES6.

The ECMA Technical Committee 39

In 1996, Netscape and Brendan Eich brought JavaScript to the ECMA international standards organization. They formed a technical committee called TC39 to work on the development of the language.

The first version of ECMA-262 came out in June 1997.

From ES4 to ES6

When the TC39 committee met in Oslo in 2008 to discuss ECMAScript 4, there were two distinct groups with different opinions.

The ECMAScript 3.1 Camp:
Microsoft and Yahoo desired a small improvement from ES3.

The ECMAScript 4 Camp:
Adobe, Mozilla, Opera, and Google desired a significant improvement for ES4.

August 13 2008, Brendan Eich wrote an email:

The JavaScript standards body, Ecma's Technical Committee 39, has been divided for more than a year. Some members supported ES4, a significant fourth edition to ECMA-262, while others endorsed ES3.1, which is based on the current ECMA-262 Edition 3 (ES3) specification. Fortunately, the division has now been resolved.

We decided to collaborate to solve the problem.

  • ECMAScript 4 got a new name, which is ES5.
  • ES5 is meant to be a small improvement on ECMAScript 3.
  • Later versions will incorporate the features of ECMAScript 4.
  • TC39 needs to create a new significant update, broader in scope than ES5.

The upcoming release, known as ES6, was given the code name "Harmony" (due to the divisions it caused).
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