Discover the Superpowers Unlocked in JavaScript ES6

A Guide to the Most Exciting New Features

Photo by Luke Stackpoole on Unsplash

ECMAScript 2015, also known as ES6, was a major update to the JavaScript language. It introduced an enormous number of new features that radically changed development in JavaScript and unlocked entirely new programming paradigms.

In this article, we will run through some of the most exciting features introduced in ES6. Understanding these will allow you to write more modern, cleaner JavaScript and prepare you for what’s coming next in ES2022 and beyond.

Let’s explore all the superpowers this update gives JavaScript developers!

Arrow Functions

Arrow functions provide a simplified function syntax, removing the need for the function keyword and embrace conciseness. They look like this:

// Traditional function
function add(a, b) {
  return a + b;
}

// Arrow function
const add = (a, b) => {
  return a + b; 
};js

They have lexical scoping — the this value is based on surrounding context rather than how it is called. Great for simple functions and callback-based code.

Template Literals

Template literals allow embedding Javascript expressions and variables directly inside…