How to Learn ES6

We ran a survey at about the time the standard became official in June 2015 to see how many people were using ES6. Nearly half of respondents already were. Because of the availability of transpilers and polyfills, the world adopted ES6 much faster than previous enhancements to the language specification. ES6 includes lots of great enhancements that will make you & your team more effective.

If you haven’t learned ES6 yet, the time is now.

Common Excuses

• “I’m waiting for browser support.” Babel lets you transpile most ES6 code so it will work in browsers dating back to IE8. Don’t get left behind.
• “I don’t want to introduce a compile step.” If you’re building any non-trivial app, you should be compiling anyway, for many reasons.
• “I’m a beginner and learning ES6 while I’m trying to learn JavaScript sounds hard.” I hear you, but ES6 is JavaScript. It’s the current, official JavaScript standard, and all the new books and tutorials you’ll want to read are going to use ES6 examples. In the meantime,

I’m Ready to Learn!

1. Copy and paste blog & tutorial examples into the Babel REPL to see how Babel compiles them to ES5.
2. Watch ES6: The ROAD MAP webcast recording (packed with interactive examples)
3. The “Composing Software” series tackles functional programming from the ground up using ES6 examples. ES6 syntax basics are covered in “A Functional Programmer’s Introduction to JavaScript”.
4. “Understanding ES6” by Nicholas Zakas
5. “Exploring ES6” & “Setting Up ES6” by Axel Rauschmayer
6. “You Don’t Know JS: ES6 & Beyond” by Kyle Simpson
7. Keep reading JavaScript Scene for lots of example code.

P.S. Use class and extends with caution. You’ll need to know the syntax because you’ll encounter it a lot in spite of dangers. In particular, avoid the extends keyword when you can. Explore these resources to learn why:

• “The Two Pillars of JavaScript” Prototypal OO
• “Common Misconceptions about Inheritance in JavaScript”
• “Inside the Dev Team Death Spiral”

Level up your skills with courses & webcasts on ES6, TDD, prototypal OO, React, & More.

Eric Elliott is the author of “Programming JavaScript Applications” (O’Reilly), and “Learn Universal JavaScript App Development with Node & React”. He has contributed to software experiences for Adobe Systems, Zumba Fitness, The Wall Street Journal, ESPN, BBC, and top recording artists includingUsher,Frank Ocean, Metallica, and many more.

He spends most of his time in the San Francisco Bay Area with the most beautiful woman in the world.