es5-shim

It requires ES5 features like Object.freeze and Object.defineProperty to work correctly. https://github.com/es-shims/es5-shim#may-fail

A number of these things are available in IE9 and older using https://github.com/es-shims/es5-shim (including Object.create that the article was talking about)

True. But anyone supporting IE < 9 I'd think would be using ES5 shim: https://github.com/es-shims/es5-shim But maybe not?

I don't like using underscore or lodash for methods that are parts of the EcmaScript specifications. I prefer using native methods (i.e. `forEach`, `map`, etc..) and including a JS shim (like https://github.com/es-shims/es5-shim) to monkey-patch legacy browsers. And I know that these are just examples, but what is the point of writing: _.each(someArray, function(someThing) { doSomeWorkOn(someThing); }) when you can simply write: _.each(someArray, doSomeWorkOn);

Also the es5-shim library is quite nice, and includes a bind polyfill. https://github.com/es-shims/es5-shim

Recently, I have developed a small page where I wanted not to use jQuery on purpose and code against the DOM APIs instead. For IE8 compatibility I have used [1] (so I could use addEventListener and DOMContentLoaded for example), and also shims for ES5 [2] (e.g. Array.prototype.forEach) and classList [3]. While I did not run in any troubles, I don't think it is worth the effort, alone just because jQuery has a much nicer and shorter API (cp. ".on()" vs. ".addEventListener()"). But I still support the case that not every plugin/library developer should depend on jQuery by default, even if it is not necessary. [1] https://github.com/WebReflection/ie8 [2] https://github.com/es-shims/es5-shim [3] https://github.com/eligrey/classList.js

there are shims - the MDN one works well, or you can download this library to shim the whole of ES5 https://github.com/kriskowal/es5-shim (other libraries are availble) Focusing on modern browsers and shimming the old ones is the way to go, IMHO

If you use es5-shim (https://github.com/kriskowal/es5-shim), you can say movePlayer.bind(this, "north") on older browsers.

in ES5: Array.isArray(['one', 'two']) === true Until then, you can use a polyfill such as ES5-Shim[1], another library such as Underscore.js[2] or even something simple like this: if(!Array.isArray) { Array.isArray = function (vArg) { return Object.prototype.toString.call(vArg) === "[object Array]"; }; } [1] https://github.com/kriskowal/es5-shim [2] http://underscorejs.org/#isArray

Yep, skip those pesky IE compatibility issues, except, if you expect to target IE <= 8, you should definitely get the shim library at the link below. It provides compatible IE functions for all the common native JS methods and functions that missing in IE <= 8. Then you never have to worry about IE again. https://github.com/kriskowal/es5-shim

jQueryIsAwesome, you must not know what an ES5 shim is. It is a cross-browser solution. https://github.com/kriskowal/es5-shim Especially when you note that JavaScript is not just run in browsers these days, and that most server-side deployments do implement ES5 features, it makes very little sense for modern tutorials to avoid ES5 features unless they are trying to demonstrate drop-in snippets with no library dependencies. It seems clear that the author is not shy about including other libraries with his code.

I'm a big fan of es5-shim (https://github.com/kriskowal/es5-shim/), which monkey-patches these handy methods in older browsers.