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I thought that they were the same thing for a while, but I often see phrasing in blogs or in answers here that seems to imply that there is a difference between the two. Even SO has two distinct tags, but their description doesn't show any clear difference.

I searched around for a bit and it only added to the confusion as it seems that I am not the only one who's unsure about what means what. Is there an official definition for both of these terms, perhaps defined by Ecma International themselves? If not, is there at least a commonly accepted definition?

dee-see
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  • Apparently they are much the same, *ECMAScript 6 is the next version of the standard, code-named "Harmony"*: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Web/JavaScript/ECMAScript_6_support_in_Mozilla – Todd Motto Feb 05 '14 at 14:49
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    In general I think "harmony" now refers to all potential future proposals (including those post-ES6) and ES6 refers to the latest draft specification. See the [Harmony wiki](http://wiki.ecmascript.org/doku.php?id=harmony:harmony) for a bit more info. – James Allardice Feb 05 '14 at 14:49

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As @JamesAllardice already said in the comments, the term harmony refers to all proposals for extending the current (ES5) language that meet the common goals of the TC39 committee.

Some of these harmony proposals are then selected and incorporated into the various specification drafts for the next version of the language (ES-next), which is currently ES6.

Those proposals that were not (yet) approved by the TC39 committee because of ongoing disputes ("disharmony") are called straw-man proposals.

Bergi
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  • Thanks! Would that mean that the tag wiki is wrong for [tag:ecmascript-harmony] then? As it is a superset of ES6, not really the code name for ES6 if I understood correctly. – dee-see Feb 05 '14 at 19:06
  • Yeah, the excerpt might be misleading. "*It names the agreed design trajectory of post-ES5 editions.*" is fine though. – Bergi Feb 05 '14 at 19:35
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    I have clarified both [tag:EcmaScript-6] and [tag:EcmaScript-Harmony] now. – Bergi Feb 05 '14 at 19:52
  • Was confusing especially since all questions relating to the topic could be using either tags, at least for now. – user568109 Feb 06 '14 at 04:48