Chapter 13. ECMAScript and the future of CoffeeScript
This chapter covers
- CoffeeScript and the future of JavaScript
- Features in ECMAScript 5 you can use today
- Upcoming features in ECMAScript 6
- Source maps for debugging
Whatever your opinion of JavaScript (and regardless of whether learning CoffeeScript has changed it), you should count on it being around for a long time—long enough, at least, that it will probably outlast your career as a programmer. For that reason it’s important to look at what the future holds for JavaScript and how it will affect CoffeeScript.
In this chapter you’ll look at the evolving relationship between CoffeeScript and JavaScript and why your understanding of CoffeeScript applies not only to JavaScript today but also to the JavaScript of tomorrow. You’ll see how JavaScript versions relate to different editions of the ECMAScript specification that documents the evolving JavaScript standard. Lastly, this chapter discusses one of the most important tool-related aspects of the JavaScript ecosystem: how to debug CoffeeScript programs with source maps. Before looking at the future, though, where are you now?
When talking about language versions, it’s important to first have a broad overview. Table 13.1 shows a timeline of major versions of the ECMAScript specification.