[bluepnume]

More than just syntactic sugar. async/await changes the whole control flow of a method.

[callahad]

You can actually get identical semantics, and almost identical syntax, by abusing ES6 generators, so it is just syntactic sugar: https://gist.github.com/callahad/b99c83d6d9fd675137b7

[conical]

Does the phrase "syntactic sugar" have any meaning? Name a new language feature that "it is just syntactic sugar" can't be applied to.

[callahad]

Sure, ES6 WeakMap and WeakSet can't be implemented without native support in the runtime.

Or, for that matter, const. Though perhaps const is just syntatic sugar for not reassigning to the same darn name? ;)

[conical]

Const is a pretty good example, the closest I can think to emulating it in es5 is something like:

Object.defineProperty(this, 'five', { enumerable: true, writable: false, value: 5, configurable: false });

If in global scope, 'five' will look like a const.

WeakMap and WeakSet have polyfills with minor caveats.

I guess you're defining language features as not "syntactic sugar" if they can't be absolutely 100% polyfilled.

[bluepnume]

Agreed, it's syntactic sugar over es6 generators. But I don't agree that it's just syntactic sugar over promises, which is what the parent comment asserted.

[iamstef]

Yes, by introducing (extremely handy) syntactic sugar ;)