JS History

JS Tutorial

JS Version

JS Objects

JS Function

JS Classes

JS Async

JS HTML DOM

JS Browser BOM

JS Web API

JS AJAX

JS JSON

JS vs JQUERY

JS Graphics

JavaScript History

javascript / ECMAScript

JavaScript was invented by Brendan Eich in 1995.

It was developed for Netscape 2 and was declared the ECMA-262 standard in 1997.

After Netscape handed JavaScript to ECMA, the Mozilla foundation continued to create JavaScript for the Firefox browser. Mozilla’s latest version was 1.8.5. (Identical to ES5).

Internet Explorer (IE4) was the first browser to support ECMA-262 Edition 1 (ES1).

Year

ECMA

Browser

1995

  –

JavaScript was invented by Brendan Eich

1996

  –

Netscape 2 was released with JavaScript 1.0

1997

  –   

JavaScript became an ECMA standard (ECMA-262)

1997

ES1

ECMAScript 1 was released

1997

ES1

IE 4 was the first browser to support ES1

1998

ES2

ECMAScript 2 was released

1998

  – 

Netscape 42 was released with JavaScript 1.3

1999

ES2

IE 5 was the first browser to support ES2

1999

ES3

ECMAScript 3 was released

2000

ES3

IE 5.5 was the first browser to support ES3

2000

  – 

Netscape 62 was released with JavaScript 1.5

2000

  –

Firefox 1 was released with JavaScript 1.5

2008

ES4

ECMAScript 4 was abandoned

2009

ES5

ECMAScript 5 was released

2011

ES5

IE 9 was the first browser to support ES5 *

2011

ES5

Firefox 4 was released with JavaScript 1.8.5

2012

ES5

Full support for ES5 in Safari 6

2012

ES5

Full support for ES5 in IE 10

2012

ES5

Full support for ES5 in Chrome 23

2013

ES5

Full support for ES5 in Firefox 21

2013

ES5

Full support for ES5 in Opera 15

2014

ES5

Full support for ES5 in all browsers

2015

ES6

ECMAScript 6 was released

2016

ES6

Full support for ES6 in Chrome 51

2016

ES6

Full support for ES6 in Opera 38

2016

ES6

Full support for ES6 in Edge 14

2016

ES6

Full support for ES6 in Safari 10

2015

ES6

Full support for ES6 in Firefox 52

2018

ES6

Full support for ES6 in all browsers **

The ECMA Technical Committee 39

In 1996, Netscape and Brendan Eich took JavaScript to the ECMA international standards organization, and a technical committee (TC39) was created to develop the language.

ECMA-262 Edition 1 was released in June 1997.

From ES4 to ES6

When the TC39 committee came together in Oslo in 2008, to agree to work

Microsoft and Yahoo wanted an incremental upgrade from ES3.

The ECMAScript 4 Camp:

Adobe, Mozilla, Opera, and Google wanted a massive ES4 upgrade.

On August 13, 2008, Brendan Eich wrote an email:

It’s no secret that the JavaScript standards body, Ecma’s Technical Committee 39, has been split for over a year, some members favored ES4, a major fourth edition to ECMA-262, and others advocated ES3.1 which was based on the existing ECMA-262 Edition 3 (ES3) specification. According to the reports, the split is over.

The solution was to work together:

  • ECMAScript 4 was renamed ES5.
  • ES5 should be an incremental upgrade of ECMAScript 3.
  • Features of ECMAScript 4 should be picked up in later versions.
  • TC39 developed a new major release, that had a larger scope than ES5.