Improvements to JavaScript are eyed in areas such as type systems, name spaces, block statements, and structural types. Object types will be nullible by default.

"We're adding a lot of fun features," said Eich.

Backward compatibility is critical, Eich stressed. "Any evolution of JavaScript has to be backward-compatible. It can't force you to change the way you write code," he said.

Developers of JavaScript 2 seek scalability and extensibility. "We definitely want it to be extensible because I don't plan on doing this amount of work again," Eich said.

Thread support is not planned, however. Threads are less common in browser implementations and "it's very hard to program with threads," Eich said.