ECMAScript 2017: what’s new for JavaScript?

1. ECMAScript 2017: what’s new for JavaScript? Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Techorama Antwerpen, 24 May 2017 Slides: speakerdeck.com/rauschma
2. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Overview • How is JavaScript being evolved? • What are the features of ECMAScript 2017? • What’s in store for JS after ES2017? 2
3. Evolving JavaScript: TC39 and the TC39 process © by Bryan Wright
4. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma JavaScript vs. ECMAScript • JavaScript: the language • ECMAScript: the standard for the language • Why a different name? Trademark for “JavaScript”! • Language versions: ECMAScript 6, … • Ecma: standards organisation hosting ECMAScript 4
5. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma TC39 • Ecma Technical Committee 39 (TC39): the committee evolving JavaScript • Members – strictly speaking: companies (all major browser vendors etc.) • Bi-monthly meetings of delegates and invited experts 5
6. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma TC39 members • Adobe • Apple • Bloomberg • Bocoup • Dojo Foundation • Facebook • GoDaddy.com • Google • IBM • Imperial College London • Indiana University • Inria • Intel • JS Foundation • Meteor Development Group • Microsoft • Mozilla Foundation • PayPal (ex eBay) • Tilde Inc. • Twitter • Yahoo! Source: http://ecma-international.org/memento/ TC39-RF-TG%20-%20members.htm 6
7. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Ecma Technical Committee 39 (TC39) github.com/hemanth/tc39-members { "members": { "Ordinary": [ "Adobe", "AMD", "eBay", "Google", "HewlettPackard", "Hitachi", "IBM", "Intel", "KonicaMinolta" ],
 "Associate": [ "Apple", "Canon", "Facebook", "Fujitsu", "JREastMechatronics", "Netflix", "NipponSignal", "NXP", "OMRONSocialSolutions", "Ricoh", "Sony", "Toshiba", "Twitter" ], ... 7
8. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Timeline of ECMAScript • Creation of JavaScript: May 1995 • ECMAScript 1 (June 1997): first version • ECMAScript 2 (June 1998): keep in sync with ISO standard • ECMAScript 3 (December 1999): many core features – “[…] regular expressions, better string handling, new control statements [do-while, switch], try/catch exception handling, […]” • ECMAScript 4 (abandoned in July 2008) • ECMAScript 5 (December 2009): minor improvements (standard library and strict mode) • ECMAScript 5.1 (June 2011): keep in sync with ISO standard • ECMAScript 6 (June 2015): many new features 8
9. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma The TC39 process Problems with infrequent, large releases (such as ES6): • Features that are ready sooner have to wait. • Features that are not ready are under pressure to get finished. • Next release would be a long time away. • They may delay the release. Additional problem: standardization before implementation 9
10. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma The TC39 process New TC39 process: • Manage features individually (vs. one monolithic release). • Per feature: proposal that goes through maturity stages, numbered 0 (strawman) – 4 (finished). • Introduce features gradually to community • Must be implemented early • Once a year, there is a new ECMAScript version. • Only features that are ready (=stage 4) are added. 10
11. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Stage 0: strawman • What? First sketch • Who? Submitted by TC39 member or
 registered TC39 contributor • Required? Review at TC39 meeting 11
12. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Stage 1: proposal • What? Actual proposal. TC39 is willing to help. • Who? Identify champion(s), one of them a TC39 member • Spec? Informal (prose, examples, API, semantics, algorithms, …) • Implementations? Polyfills and demos • Maturity? Major changes still expected 12
13. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Stage 2: draft • What? Draft of spec text. Likely to be standardized. • Spec? Formal description of syntax and semantics (gaps are OK) • Implementations? Two experimental implementations (incl. one transpiler) • Continually kept in sync with spec • Maturity? Incremental changes 13
14. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Stage 3: candidate • What? Proposal is finished, needs feedback from implementations • Spec? Complete • Maturity? Changes only in response to critical issues 14
15. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Stage 4: finished • What? Ready for standardization • Test 262 acceptance tests • Implementations? • Two implementations: spec-compliant, passing tests • Significant practical experience • Next? Added to ECMAScript as soon as possible 15
16. Stage 0: strawman Stage 1: proposal Stage 2: draft Stage 3: candidate Stage 4: finished Pick champions First spec text, 2 implementations Spec complete Test 262 acceptance tests Review at TC39 meeting TC39 helps Likely to be standardized Done, needs feedback from implementations Ready for standardization Sketch
17. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Think in proposals & stages, not in ES versions Stages matter, not ECMAScript versions: • Stage 4: will be in ECMAScript • No guarantees w.r.t. ES version • Mature, available in more and more engines Tip: Ignore proposals before stage 3. • Stage 3: proposal basically finished • Before stage 4: proposals may be withdrawn. • Object.observe(): withdrawn at stage 2 • SIMD.js: withdrawn at stage 3 17
18. ECMAScript 2017 © by TTFCA
19. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Features of ES2017 Major new features: • Async Functions (Brian Terlson) • Shared memory and atomics (Lars T. Hansen) Minor new features: • Object.values/Object.entries (Jordan Harband) • String padding (Jordan Harband, Rick Waldron) • Object.getOwnPropertyDescriptors() (Jordan Harband, Andrea Giammarchi) • Trailing commas in function parameter lists and calls (Jeff Morrison) 19
20. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Async Functions function fetchJsonViaPromises(url) { return fetch(url) // browser API, async .then(request => request.text()) // async .then(text => { return JSON.parse(text); // sync }) .catch(error => { console.log(`ERROR: ${error.stack}`); }); } async function fetchJsonAsync(url) { try { const request = await fetch(url); // fulfillment const text = await request.text(); // fulfillment return JSON.parse(text); } catch (error) { // rejection console.log(`ERROR: ${error.stack}`); } } 20
21. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Async Functions Variants: // Async function declaration async function foo() {} // Async function expression const foo = async function () {}; // Async arrow function const foo = async () => {}; // Async method definition (in classes, too) const obj = { async foo() {} }; 21
22. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Fulfilling the Promise of an async function async function asyncFunc() { return 123; } asyncFunc() .then(x => console.log(x)); // 123 22
23. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Rejecting the Promise of an async function async function asyncFunc() { throw new Error('Problem!'); } asyncFunc() .catch(err => console.log(err)); // Error: Problem! 23
24. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma History of concurrency in JavaScript • Single main thread + asynchronicity via callbacks • Web Workers: heavyweight processes • Communication (data is never shared!): 1. Originally: copy and send strings 2. Structured cloning: copy and send structured data 3. Transferables: move and send structured data • Failed experiment: PJS / River Trail • High-level support for data parallelism (map(), filter(), reduce()) 24
25. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Shared Array Buffers New – Shared Array Buffers: • A primitive building block for higher-level concurrency abstractions • Design principle of Extensible Web Manifesto • Share data between workers • Enable compilation of multi-threaded C++ code to JavaScript (later: WebAssembly) 25
26. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Creating and sending a Shared Array Buffer //----- main.js ----- const worker = new Worker('worker.js'); // To be shared const sharedBuffer = new SharedArrayBuffer( 10 * Int32Array.BYTES_PER_ELEMENT); // 10 elts // Share sharedBuffer with the worker worker.postMessage({sharedBuffer}); // clone // Local only const sharedArray = new Int32Array(sharedBuffer); 26
27. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Receiving a Shared Array Buffer //----- worker.js ----- self.addEventListener('message', event => { const {sharedBuffer} = event.data; const sharedArray = new Int32Array(sharedBuffer); // ··· }); 27
28. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Problem: compilers may rearrange reads // Original code while (sharedArray[0] === 1) ; // Rearranged by compiler: const tmp = sharedArray[0]; while (tmp === 1) ; // runs never or forever 28
29. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Problem: writes may be reordered // main.js sharedArray[1] = 11; sharedArray[2] = 22; // worker.js while (sharedArray[2] !== 22) ; console.log(sharedArray[1]); // 0 or 11 29
30. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Solution: Atomics • Operations that are non-interruptible (atomic) – think transactions in DBs • Order of reads and writes is fixed • No reads or writes are eliminated • Used to synchronize non-atomic reads and writes 30
31. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Using Atomics // main.js Atomics.store(sharedArray, 1, 11); Atomics.store(sharedArray, 2, 22); // worker.js while (Atomics.load(sharedArray, 2) !== 22) ; console.log(Atomics.load(sharedArray, 1)); // 11 31
32. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Atomics Loading and storing: • Atomics.load(ta : TypedArray<T>, index) : T • Atomics.store(ta : TypedArray<T>, index, value : T) : T • Atomics.exchange(ta : TypedArray<T>, index, value : T) : T • Atomics.compareExchange(ta : TypedArray<T>, index, expectedValue, replacementValue) : T Waiting and waking: • Atomics.wait(ta: Int32Array, index, value, timeout=Number.POSITIVE_INFINITY) : ('not-equal' | 'ok' | 'timed-out') • Atomics.wake(ta : Int32Array, index, count) 32
33. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Atomics Simple modifications of Typed Array elements (ta[index] op= value): • Atomics.add(ta : TypedArray<T>, index, value) : T • Atomics.sub(ta : TypedArray<T>, index, value) : T • Atomics.and(ta : TypedArray<T>, index, value) : T • Atomics.or(ta : TypedArray<T>, index, value) : T • Atomics.xor(ta : TypedArray<T>, index, value) : T 33
34. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Object.entries() Object.entries() returns an Array of [key,value] pairs: > Object.entries({ one: 1, two: 2 }) [ [ 'one', 1 ], [ 'two', 2 ] ] 34
35. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Object.entries() Easier to iterate over properties: const obj = { one: 1, two: 2 }; for (const [k, v] of Object.entries(obj)) { console.log(k, v); } // Output // "one" 1 // "two" 2 35
36. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Object.values() Complements Object.keys() and Object.entries(): > Object.values({ one: 1, two: 2 }) [ 1, 2 ] 36
37. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma String padding > '1'.padStart(3, '0') '001' > 'x'.padStart(3) ' x' > '1'.padEnd(3, '0') '100' > 'x'.padEnd(3) 'x ' 37
38. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma String padding Use cases: • Displaying tabular data in a monospaced font. • Adding a count to a file name: 'file 001.txt' • Aligning console output: 'Test 001: ✓' • Printing hexadecimal or binary numbers that have a fixed number of digits: '0x00FF' 38
39. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Object. getOwnPropertyDescriptors() const obj = { [Symbol('foo')]: 123, get bar() { return 'abc' }, }; console.log(Object.getOwnPropertyDescriptors(obj)); // Output: // { [Symbol('foo')]: // { value: 123, // writable: true, // enumerable: true, // configurable: true }, // bar: // { get: [Function: bar], // set: undefined, // enumerable: true, // configurable: true } } 39
40. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Object. getOwnPropertyDescriptors() Object.assign() is limited: can’t copy getters and setters, etc. // Copying properties const target = {}; Object.defineProperties(target, Object.getOwnPropertyDescriptors(source)); // Cloning objects const clone = Object.create( Object.getPrototypeOf(orig), Object.getOwnPropertyDescriptors(orig)); 40
41. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Trailing commas in object literals and Array literals Trailing commas are legal in object and Array literals: const obj = { first: 'Jane', last: 'Doe', // trailing comma }; const arr = [ 'red', 'green', 'blue', // trailing comma ]; console.log(arr.length); // 3 41
42. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Trailing commas in object literals and Array literals Two benefits: • Rearranging items is simpler (no commas to add or remove) • Version control systems can track what really changed. Negative example: // Before: [ 'foo' ] // After: [ 'foo', 'bar' ] 42
43. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Proposal: Trailing commas in function parameter definitions and calls // Function definition function foo( param1, param2, ) {} // Function call foo( 'abc', 'def', ); 43
44. After ES2017 © by JD Hancock
45. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Stage 4 features • Lifting Template Literal Restriction (Tim Disney) 45
46. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Stage 3 features • import() (Domenic Denicola) • Rest/Spread Properties (Sebastian Markbage) • global (Jordan Harband) • New regular expression features • Asynchronous Iteration (Domenic Denicola) • Function.prototype.toString revision (Michael Ficarra) • SIMD.JS – SIMD APIs (John McCutchan, Peter Jensen, Dan Gohman, Daniel Ehrenberg) 46
47. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma import() ES6 – load modules statically: • In a fixed manner • Specified at compile time Load modules dynamically: import('./dir/someModule.js') .then(someModule => someModule.foo()); An operator, but used like a function. 47
48. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma import() Use cases: • Code splitting: load parts of your program on demand. • Conditional loading of modules:
 if (cond) { import(···).then(···) } • Computed module specifiers:
 import('module'+count).then(···) 48
49. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Spread operator for properties (object literals) > const obj = {foo: 1, bar: 2}; > {...obj, baz: 3} { foo: 1, bar: 2, baz: 3 } 49
50. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Use cases: spreading properties // Cloning objects const clone1 = {...obj}; // Merging objects const merged = {...obj1, ...obj2}; // Filling in defaults const data = {...DEFAULTS, ...userData}; // Non-destructively updating property `foo` const obj = {foo: 'a', bar: 'b'}; const obj2 = {...obj, foo: 1}; // {foo: 1, bar: 'b'} 50
51. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Rest operator for properties (destructuring) const obj = {foo: 1, bar: 2, baz: 3}; const {foo, ...rest} = obj; // Same as: // const foo = 1; // const rest = {bar: 2, baz: 3}; function f({param1, param2, ...rest}) { // rest console.log('All parameters: ', {param1, param2, ...rest}); // spread return param1 + param2; } 51
52. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma global Accessing the global object: • Browsers (main thread): window • Browsers (main thread & workers): self • Node.js: global // In browsers console.log(global === window); // true 52
53. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma New regular expression features • Named capture groups (Daniel Ehrenberg, Brian Terlson) • Lookbehind assertions (Daniel Ehrenberg) • Unicode property escapes (Brian Terlson, Daniel Ehrenberg, Mathias Bynens) • s (dotAll) flag (Mathias Bynens, Brian Terlson) 53
54. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma RegExp named capture groups Numbered capture groups: const RE_DATE = /([0-9]{4})-([0-9]{2})- ([0-9]{2})/; const matchObj = RE_DATE.exec('1999-12-31'); const year = matchObj[1]; // 1999 Named capture groups: const RE_DATE = /(?<year>[0-9]{4})-(? <month>[0-9]{2})-(?<day>[0-9]{2})/; const matchObj = RE_DATE.exec('1999-12-31'); const year = matchObj.groups.year; // 1999 54
55. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma RegExp lookbehind assertions Positive lookbehind assertion: const RE_$_PREFIX = /(?<=\$)foo/g; '$foo %foo foo'.replace(RE_$_PREFIX, 'bar'); // '$bar %foo foo' Without a lookbehind assertion: const RE_$_PREFIX = /(\$)foo/g; '$foo %foo foo'.replace(RE_$_PREFIX, '$1bar'); // '$bar %foo foo' 55
56. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma RegExp lookbehind assertions Negative lookbehind assertion: const RE_NO_$_PREFIX = /(?<!\$)foo/g; '$foo %foo foo'.replace(RE_NO_$_PREFIX, 'bar'); // '$foo %bar bar' 56
57. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma RegExp Unicode property escapes Inside regular expressions: • \p{PropertyName=PropertyValue} • \p{BinaryPropertyName} • Abbreviate \p{General_Category=Letter} as \p{Letter} Enabled via /u flag! 57
58. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma RegExp Unicode property escapes: example > /^\w+$/.test('äöü') // [a-zA-Z0-9_] false > /^[\p{Alphabetic}\p{Mark} \p{Decimal_Number} \p{Connector_Punctuation} \p{Join_Control}]+$/u.test('äöü') true 58
59. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma s (dotAll) flag for regular expressions Old: > /a.b/.test('a\nb') false > /a[^]b/.test('a\nb') true > /a[\s\S]b/.test('a\nb') true New (flag /s): > /a.b/s.test('a\nb') true 59
60. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Asynchronous iteration // Synchronous iteration: for (const l of readLinesSync(fileName)) { console.log(l); } • readLinesSync() returns a synchronous iterable • Problem: readLinesSync() must be synchronous. 60
61. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Asynchronous iteration // Asynchronous iteration: for await (const l of readLinesAsync(fileName)) { console.log(l); } • readLinesAsync() returns an asynchronous iterable • for-await-of works inside: • async functions • async generators (new, part of proposal) 61
62. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Asynchronous generators: yield async function* createAsyncIterable(syncIterable) { for (const elem of syncIterable) { yield elem; } } // Use: async function f() { const aI = createAsyncIterable(['a', 'b']); for await (const x of aI) { console.log(x); } } // Output: // a // b 62
63. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Asynchronous generators: await async function* id(asyncIterable) { for await (const elem of asyncIterable) { yield elem; } } 63
64. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Asynchronous iteration interface AsyncIterable { [Symbol.asyncIterator]() : AsyncIterator; } interface AsyncIterator { next() : Promise<IteratorResult>; } interface IteratorResult { value: any; done: boolean; } 64
65. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Function.prototype. toString revision Improved spec of toString() for functions: • Return source code whenever possible • Previously: optional • Otherwise: standardized placeholder • Previously: must cause SyntaxError (hard to guarantee!) 65
66. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Template literal revision Syntax rules after backslash: • \u starts a Unicode escape, which must look like \u{1F4A4} or \u004B • \x starts a hex escape, which must look like \x4B. • \ plus digit starts an octal escape (such as \141). Octal escapes are forbidden in template literals and strict mode string literals. Therefore illegal: latex`\unicode` windowsPath`C:\uuu\xxx\111` 66
67. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Template literal revision function tagFunc(tmplObj, substs) { return { Cooked: tmplObj, Raw: tmplObj.raw, }; } tagFunc`\u{4B}`; // { Cooked: [ 'K' ], Raw: [ '\\u{4B}' ] } 67
68. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Template literal revision Solution: tagFunc`\uu ${1} \xx` // { Cooked: [ undefined, undefined ], // Raw: [ '\\uu ', ' \\xx' ] } 68
69. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Trying out new ES features 69
70. Dr. Axel Rauschmayer @rauschma Trying out new ES features 70
71. Thanks! Twitter: @rauschma Books by Axel (free online): ExploringJS.com Upcoming JS features: 2ality.com/2017/02/ ecmascript-2018.html These slides: speakerdeck.com/ rauschma