The State of ES5 on the Web
September 11, 2024
So what is the current state of ES5 on the web today? And what are the best practices for web developers when building code for production?
This article looks at the data we have to answer these questions. It also offers some concrete recommendations (based on that data) for how both website developers and library authors should approach legacy browser support moving forward.
Backwards compatibility is one of there principles of the web–it has ensured the web has for the most part avoided the fragmentation that most long lived platforms suffer from. But it’s a challenge for developers. A particular challenge is when and how to let go of that backwards compatibility-whether concerning browsers or technologies.
Here Philip Walton considers ES5 (the major 2009 reboot of JavaScript that formed the foundations for modern JavaScript) and what developers need to know about it today.
