The Array constructor is brittle due to its special-case behavior on single numeric arguments; this is the rationale behind a simpler, more uniform factory function for creating arrays (Array.of).

There are many array-like objects in JS (arguments objects, DOM NodeLists, arrays from separate windows, typed arrays) and no simple way to convert one of these to an instance of Array in the current window; this is the rationale behind a simple conversion function (Array.from).

• Array.from : takes a single argument x, iterates from 0 to x.length - 1, and copies the property at each index into a fresh array object.

• Array.of : takes a variable number of arguments and produces an instance of Array containing those elements.

• es-discuss discussion
• gist with more discussion, thanks to @rwaldron

• raised in TC39 discussion: what to do about subclassing; does SubArray inherit Array and does it return a new SubArray or a new Array
• Doug raised the point about confusion between this use of of and the use of of in for-of
• Jason Orendorff pointed out on IRC that Array.of and Set.of would be better used as conversions from iterables:

Set.of([1, 2, 3, 4, 5]);
Array.of(myset);