First, what "constant stream of new features"? Over the past 20 years it's been a fairly stagnant language.
Second, stagnation is not a good thing. I make my living writing Javascript, and being able to write ES6 instead of ES5 makes me happier and more productive. That's not a minor benefit; that's literally the most important thing you can say about a language update. And thanks to babel, it doesn't even break backwards compatability. What possible drawback is there?
Yes, this is ruining the "funny little language" you liked, but if you want a funny toy language, go use Elm or Elixir or something. Javascript is too important to be a hipster playground.
Comments
First, what "constant stream of new features"? Over the past 20 years it's been a fairly stagnant language.
Second, stagnation is not a good thing. I make my living writing Javascript, and being able to write ES6 instead of ES5 makes me happier and more productive. That's not a minor benefit; that's literally the most important thing you can say about a language update. And thanks to babel, it doesn't even break backwards compatability. What possible drawback is there?
Yes, this is ruining the "funny little language" you liked, but if you want a funny toy language, go use Elm or Elixir or something. Javascript is too important to be a hipster playground.