Eliminating libraries has adventages - it eliminates dependency. When you have to integrate 2 projects using different basic libraries, it's painful.
In one of C++ programs I've worked on, we've had 4 different classes for string used (along with char* of course).
Re:ECMAScript 6 looks promising
by firefoxman1 on Thursday November 24, 2011 @03:17PM
(#3275314)
It does have some advantages, but the author of a library creates a library to do a specific thing and to do it well. When it gets added to the language, as we've seen with the horrible module proposal, lots of people all disagree on how it should be implemented so you end up with a much worse implementation than if you just let individuals create the feature how they think is best.
With libraries, you are free to switch to other ones if you don't like the way it does a specific thing. Don't like CommonJS? Don't use browserify, and instead try RequireJS. Don't like how Prototype extends the prototype of objects? Try jQuery.
The main issue is that half of these features don't solve any real problem. They should look to libraries like underscore that add features and solve problems that JS currently doesn't. It's almost like they just want to eliminate libraries altogether and have everything work out of the box.