Growing a language: An empirical study on how (and why) developers use some recently-introduced and/or recently-evolving JavaScript features

Hafiz, Munawar; Hasan, Samir; King, Zachary; Wirfs-Brock, Allen

doi:10.1016/j.jss.2016.04.045

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…In the case of algorithms.js, the developer is in favor of ES6 classes, although he believes that it is necessary to transpile the migrated code to ES5 for the sake of compatibility. 10 However, he does not want the project to depend on a transpiler, such as Babel 11 , as stated in the following comment:…”

Section: Feedback From Developersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Hafiz et al [10] present an empirical study to understand how different language features in JavaScript are used by developers. The authors conclude that: (a) developers are not fully aware about newly introduced JavaScript features; (b) developers continue to use deprecated features that are no longer recommended; (c) very few developers are currently using object-oriented features, such as the new class syntax.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We also implemented a tool, JSClassFinder [9], to detect classes in legacy JavaScript code. Moreover, a recent empirical study shows that JavaScript developers are not fully aware of changes introduced in ES6, and very few are currently using object-oriented features, such as the new class syntax [10].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Refactoring Legacy JavaScript Code to Use Classes: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Silva¹,

Valente

Bergel

2017

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

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Abstract. JavaScript systems are becoming increasingly complex and large. To tackle the challenges involved in implementing these systems, the language is evolving to include several constructions for programmingin-the-large. For example, although the language is prototype-based, the latest JavaScript standard, named ECMAScript 6 (ES6), provides native support for implementing classes. Even though most modern web browsers support ES6, only a very few applications use the class syntax. In this paper, we analyze the process of migrating structures that emulate classes in legacy JavaScript code to adopt the new syntax for classes introduced by ES6. We apply a set of migration rules on eight legacy JavaScript systems. In our study, we document: (a) cases that are straightforward to migrate (the good parts); (b) cases that require manual and ad-hoc migration (the bad parts); and (c) cases that cannot be migrated due to limitations and restrictions of ES6 (the ugly parts). Six out of eight systems (75%) contain instances of bad and/or ugly cases. We also collect the perceptions of JavaScript developers about migrating their code to use the new syntax for classes.

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Section: Feedback From Developersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%