This presentation explains the various ways in which JavaScript relies on Unicode, what the consequences are for JavaScript developers, and how ECMAScript 6 will make our lives a bit easier in this regard.

First off, the basics of Unicode are explained. Once that’s out of the way, I’ll talk a little bit about different character encodings, only to determine the character encoding that JavaScript uses internally.

Then we’ll explore the various consequences of JavaScript exposing “characters” according to UCS-2/UTF-16, and I’ll explain why it can be problematic.

Finally, I’ll present robust ECMAScript 5-compatible workarounds to the issues encountered, and explain how ECMAScript 6 will make it easier to support full Unicode in JavaScript strings and regular expressions.

All info in blog post form: https://mathiasbynens.be/notes/javascript-unicode
Transcript: http://2014.jsconf.eu/speakers/mathias-bynens-javascript-loves-unicode.html

License: For reuse of this video under a more permissive license please get in touch with us. The speakers retain the copyright for their performances.

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