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A comment on Future JavaScript: what is still missing?. Parent comment

Re:Future JavaScript: what is still missing? by danarmak on Sunday January 27, 2019 @02:04PM (#19013187)
> Since JavaScript has an especially high burden for backward compatibility you can’t really remove old cruft

You can't remove features from JS runtimes (browsers or node), but you can certainly remove them from a new language version. "use strict" already did it once in JS. It can be replaced/upgraded with "use ecmascriptX.Y" for each language version.

And transpilers targeting JS and tools like packers and minifiers can enforce language versions without declaring them in each file.

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Re:Future JavaScript: what is still missing? by WorldMaker on Monday January 28, 2019 @04:48PM (#19021420)
"use strict" was also highly contentious for a time. "use versionNumber" would have similar issues to the battles the web fought over DOCTYPES and "quirks" modes and browser compatibility.
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