[damptowel]

I often worry that with every new standard the platform becomes more opaque for newcomers. You know, average people who want a shot at making their own webpage and learn to program for something with an immediate use case.

It's not like you have choices of language on the web, the JS jungle is intimidating enough for newbies as it is. I know many will tout compile-to-js as the solution, but that's an even higher barrier to entry and you get too-much-choice syndrome.

Not that I haven't been glad with the ES6 additions myself ...

[userbinator]

AFAIK JS is almost completely backwards-compatible. Just ignore all the new stuff you don't really need and focus on the basics.