Hannes Verschore

Often micro-benchmarks are used to decide a feature is slower or faster than another. Javascript engines are getting better and better and as a result micro-benchmarks show performance that has no correlation with the used feature. Here I will debunk some micro-benchmarks by explaining what happens internally in the Javascript engine, together with formulating advice on how to properly benchmark features.

EcmaScript 6 aka Harmony, the next version of the JavaScript language, is now feature frozen and the publication is expected around March 2015. Now is a good time to take a closer look at the new version. It brings new powerful features to the language, making it easier and nicer than ever to program with JavaScript. This includes (but isn't limited to) generators, destructuring patterns, function improvements, classes. The best thing is that you don't have to wait to try them. A lot of these new shiny language improvements are already present in Firefox. If we look a bit further down the path, preparation has already started for EcmaScript 7. The next big thing could be SIMD, Typed Objects ...