Latest update to the JavaScript standard brings seven new features including array grouping, growable ArrayBuffers, and promises with resolvers. Credit: Marina_Skoropadskaya / Getty Images ECMAScript 2024, a planned update to ECMA’s standard for JavaScript, is set to include seven new features ranging from array grouping to Unicode strings. The 2024 specification, from ECMA’s Technical Committee 39, is expected to be approved in June. Among the list of finished features cited for publication this year is a proposal for array grouping. Motivating this proposal is the notion that array grouping is a common operation best exemplified by SQL’s GROUP BY clause and mapreduce programming. The ability to combine like data into groups lets developers compute higher order data sets. Other new features for the 2024 specificaton include ArrayBuffer transfer, which adds new methods to ArrayBuffer.prototype, and resizable and growable ArrayBuffers, which extend ArrayBuffer constructors to take an additional maximum length, allowing for in-place growing and shrinking of buffers. Growable ArrayBuffers promise to provide better memory management and serve as a sync-up capability with WebAssembly memory growth. Another ECMAScript 2024 feature, asynchronous atomic await, would be primarily for use in agents that are not allowed to block. Another new feature, promise with resolvers, makes it easier to configure a promise’s resolution and rejection behavior after instantiating it. This has required a cumbersome workaround to extract resolve and reject functions from a callback scope, the proposal states. With well-formed Unicode strings, ECMAScript developers are moving forward on a method to verify if a given ECMAScript string is well-formed or not. Goals of the proposed method include improving performance and increasing the clarity for readers of code where this test is being performed, especially for readers without extensive Unicode or regular expression knowledge. ECMAScript 2024 also will extend the syntax for character classes to add support for set difference/subtraction, set intersection, and nested character classes. Last year’s ECMAScript 2023 featured methods for searching and changing arrays and extended the WeakMap API. Related content feature What is Rust? Safe, fast, and easy software development Unlike most programming languages, Rust doesn't make you choose between speed, safety, and ease of use. Find out how Rust delivers better code with fewer compromises, and a few downsides to consider before learning Rust. By Serdar Yegulalp Nov 20, 2024 11 mins Rust Programming Languages Software Development how-to Kotlin for Java developers: Classes and coroutines Kotlin was designed to bring more flexibility and flow to programming in the JVM. Here's an in-depth look at how Kotlin makes working with classes and objects easier and introduces coroutines to modernize concurrency. By Matthew Tyson Nov 20, 2024 9 mins Java Kotlin Programming Languages analysis Azure AI Foundry tools for changes in AI applications Microsoft’s launch of Azure AI Foundry at Ignite 2024 signals a welcome shift from chatbots to agents and to using AI for business process automation. By Simon Bisson Nov 20, 2024 7 mins Microsoft Azure Generative AI Development Tools news Microsoft unveils imaging APIs for Windows Copilot Runtime Generative AI-backed APIs will allow developers to build image super resolution, image segmentation, object erase, and OCR capabilities into Windows applications. By Paul Krill Nov 19, 2024 2 mins Generative AI APIs Development Libraries and Frameworks Resources Videos