--- title: "This week's JavaScript news, issue 313" publication: "JavaScript Weekly" issue: 313 published_at: "2016-12-08" canonical_url: "https://javascriptweekly.com/issues/313" --- This week's JavaScript news, issue 313 This week's JavaScript news — [Read this e-mail on the Web](http://javascriptweekly.com/issues/313) JavaScript WeeklyIssue 313 — December 8, 2016[The Fundamentals of Flow in 10-ish Minutes (video)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWMuAUbXcdQ)A great, snappy introduction to, and rationale for, [Flow](https://flowtype.org/), a static type checker for JavaScript. Alex Booker [The State of Babel](https://babeljs.io/blog/2016/12/07/the-state-of-babel)Babel, a JavaScript compiler, has become an essential part of the JavaScript ecosystem in the last year. This post is a thorough tour of what’s going on with it. Henry Zhu [How TC39 Works: A Process Sketch](https://thefeedbackloop.xyz/tc39-a-process-sketch-stages-0-and-1/)Yehuda Katz is on the TC39 committee responsible for evolving the language behind JavaScript. Yehuda Katz [![Frontend Masters\](https://copm.s3.amazonaws.com/08671267.png)](https://frontendmasters.com/courses/webpack/?utm_source=javascriptweekly&utm_medium=email)[New Course: 📦 Webpack 2, Deep Dive](https://frontendmasters.com/courses/webpack/)Building and deploying complex front-end applications can get complicated. Webpack simplifies this with tons of features catering to all JavaScript apps. Frontend MastersSponsor [date-fns: A Modern JavaScript Date Utility Library](https://github.com/date-fns/date-fns)Bills itself as ‘like lodash for dates’, it has over [140 functions](https://date-fns.org/docs/) for manipulating dates in a variety of ways (e.g. distanceinWords, addDays, isSameWeek, differenceInHours) Lesha Koss et al. [What's New in V8 5.6, Now in Beta](http://v8project.blogspot.com/2016/12/v8-release-56.html)V8 5.6 will go into production with Chrome 56 in several weeks. It includes a new optimization pipeline and promises key performance and memory usage improvements, specifically for ES6/ES2015. Michael Hablich [TypeScript 2.1 Released](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/typescript/2016/12/07/announcing-typescript-2-1/)A full-featured release that includes downlevel async function support, object rest and spread, the keyof operator, mapped types, and more. Microsoft [Angular 1.6 Is Here, This Is What You Need to Know](https://toddmotto.com/angular-1-6-is-here)Angular 1.6 is in the final release candidate stage and should be released this week. Here’s the low down on what to expect. Todd Motto [React Native Express: Learn React Native in the Browser](http://www.reactnativeexpress.com/)Want to see how React Native ticks without any setup or devices? Learn React Native with interactive examples on this site. React Native Express [Dear JavaScript](https://medium.com/@thejameskyle/dear-javascript-7e14ffcae36c)From one of the team behind Yarn comes a call for less negativity, fewer personal attacks, and more conversations that work towards positive outcomes. James Kyle Jobs - [Web Platform Architect at Twitch (SF)](https://jobs.lever.co/twitch/5a426e18-5c68-40bd-a1c9-2f36174bf5dd?lever-source=js-weekly )Join the Twitch JavaScript team as a Web Platform Architect and help define our next gen React web platform that scales across our distributed product engineering org while achieving a highly performant web experience! Twitch - [Frontend Engineer at Zalando Tech in Berlin](https://tech.zalando.com/jobs/65722-software-engineer-frontend/?utm_source=JavaScript_Weekly&utm_medium=Newsletter&gh_src=5sydal1)[Zalando](https://tech.zalando.com/) is the leading fashion platform in Europe. Work in one of our 200+ autonomous engineering teams and build the technologies and products that connect all parts of the fashion ecosystem. Zalando SE - [One Application, 4,000+ Opportunities - Try Hired](http://hired.com/?utm_source=newsletters&utm_medium=petercooperpress&utm_campaign=q4-16-javascriptweekly)Finding the right role can be daunting, but not on Hired. Get empowered to find the right role with multiple job offers and free personalized support. Hired In Brief [Angular 2.3.0 Now Available](http://angularjs.blogspot.com/2016/12/angular-230-now-available.html) news [A Quick Look at the JS Foundation (formerly the jQuery Foundation)](https://www.sitepoint.com/the-js-foundation/) news SitePoint [A RxJS Workshop with Ben Lesh (Online or in Silicon Valley)](http://rxworkshop.com/) news [Vote in the 2016 JS Awards](http://jsawards.org/vote.php) news [Testing with Webpack 2, inject-loader, Karma, Mocha, Chai and Sinon](https://cafedev.org/article/2016/12/testing-with-wepack-2-inject-loader-karma-mocha-chai-and-sinon/) tutorial Perry Mitchell [Writing Efficient JavaScript](https://medium.com/@xilefmai/efficient-javascript-14a11651d563) tutorial Felix Maier [Getting Started with D3.js](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ape1hFJv3Q0) video Elisabeth Engel [Beginning Your Code Quest: How to Write Your First React Component](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRoYf-QgHpc) video The Reactionary [Komodo IDE: The Best IDE for Web and Mobile Developers](http://komodoide.com/) tools Web & mobile devs get all their favorite frameworks, languages, and tools in one cross-platform, polyglot IDE ActiveStateSponsor [Innovation in JS, Get Used to It: A DotJS 2016 Conference Report](https://www.magnolia-cms.com/blogs/christopher-zimmermann/detail~@innovation--get-used-to-it.---dotjs-2016-conference-report~.html) opinion Christopher Zimmermann [Have You Moved From React to Vue? If So, Why?](https://www.reddit.com/r/javascript/comments/5fi07s/have_you_moved_from_react_to_vue_if_so_why/) opinion Reddit [You Might Not Need TypeScript (or Static Types)](https://medium.com/javascript-scene/you-might-not-need-typescript-or-static-types-aa7cb670a77b) opinion Eric Elliott [Pull to Refresh.js: A 'Pull to Refresh' Feature with No Markup Needed](https://www.boxfactura.com/pulltorefresh.js/) code Box Factura [Cleave.js: Format Input Text Content While Typing](https://nosir.github.io/cleave.js/) code For example, with credit card or phone numbers. [Styletron: A Universal, High Performance CSS-in-JS Engine](https://github.com/rtsao/styletron) code Ryan Tsao [Best in Class UI Components for Angular 2 Development – Kendo UI for Angular 2](http://www.telerik.com/kendo-angular-ui?utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=javascriptweekly&utm_campaign=dt-kendo-ang2-nov16) code jQuery-free Angular 2 components built from ground-up which deliver the business app essential building blocks. ProgressSponsor [scrollMonitor: A Simple and Fast API to Monitor Elements As You Scroll](https://github.com/stutrek/scrollMonitor) code Stu Kabakoff [premonish: Predicts Which DOM Element A User Will Interact With Next](https://github.com/mathisonian/premonish) code Matthew Conlen Curated by [Peter Cooper](http://twitter.com/peterc) and published by [Cooperpress](https://cooperpress.com/). Like this? 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