isNaN is not equal Number.isNaN

I read Exploring ES6 by Axel Rauschmayer to learn tiny details about JavaScript. I can't recommend the book enough!

ES6 is not new anymore. Everybody talked/talks about the new shiny features. Often overlooked are new methods like method Number.isNaN.

So, what's the deal with this new method? We already had the global function isNaN, didn't we?

Let's take a step back... How do you figure out if a value is NaN when the global isNaN method isn't of big help?

isNaN('foo'); // true
isNaN({});    // true
isNaN(NaN);   // true
isNaN(12);    // false

Unfortunately, the global isNaN comes with many false positives. That's why everybody used the strict equality check.

function myOwnIsNaN(value) {
  return value !== value;
}

That works because NaN is not equal to itself.

The new static method Number.isNaN fixes the odd global behavior and works as expected.

Number.isNaN('foo'); // false
Number.isNaN(12);    // false
Number.isNaN({});    // false
Number.isNaN(NaN);   // true 🎉

I like that!