If you blinked, you might have missed it: Ecma International approved ECMAScript 2026, the 17th edition of the JavaScript specification, on June 30, 2026, adding new methods across math, iterators, arrays, maps, encoding, and JSON. None of it is flashy new syntax. It's the kind of release that quietly deletes a dependency from your package.json and a chunk of boilerplate from your codebase.
Here are seven features worth learning right now what problem each one solves, and a snippet to get you started.
1. Temporal a date API that doesn't hate you
The Temporal API is the long-awaited successor to the old Date object, and unlike Date, Temporal objects are immutable with real support for time zones and non-Gregorian calendars. If you've ever fought Date's mutable state, zero-indexed months, or timezone footguns, this is the fix.
const now = Temporal.Now.plainDateTimeISO();
