You’ve mastered the art of writing JavaScript, but how do you transition from practice to real-world problem-solving? How do you simplify and make your JS code easier to read? It’s critical to write straightforward code when working in a team. Given that you are not operating in a vacuum, your programs must be simple for your team members to follow. Everyone appreciates well-written code! Learning how to make JavaScript as painless as possible and improving the code quality is a priceless talent that will quickly make you a favorite in the office.
Today, we’ll discuss fifteen best practices for simplifying your JavaScript by improving your code quality and making it simple and intelligible to other developers.
What Is JavaScript In Simple Terms?
JavaScript is basically a scripting or programming language that enables the implementation of complex features on web pages. Whenever a webpage does more than simply display static information for you to look at — when it displays timely content updates, interactive maps, animated 2D/3D graphics, scrolling video jukeboxes, and so on — know that JavaScript is involved.
The Benefits of JavaScript
- Regardless of where you host JavaScript, it is always processed on the client-side to conserve bandwidth and speed up the execution process.
- XMLHttpRequest is an important aspect in JavaScript. The object calls made by XMLHttpRequest serves as an asynchronous HTTP request to the server, allowing data to be transferred without reloading the page.
- The primary advantage of JavaScript is its ability to support and generate identical results in all modern browsers.
- Global corporations contribute to community development by initiating significant projects. Google (which invented the Angular framework) or Facebook (created the React.js framework) are two examples.
- JavaScript is used extensively throughout the web.
- JavaScript is compatible with different programming languages and can be used in a wide variety of applications.
- Numerous open-source programs assist developers in adding JavaScript.
- There are numerous courses available in the subject of JavaScript, which will enable you to rapidly and easily increase your understanding of this programming language.
- It’s not difficult to get started with JavaScript. Thus, many of us decide to begin our careers in the information technology field by studying this language.
- It enables the creation of rich user interfaces.
- There are several methods for utilizing JavaScript via Node.js servers. It is feasible to create a whole JavaScript application using only JavaScript.
Best Practices in JavaScript to Improve Your Code Quality
- Configure domains that are permitted
Configuring allowed domains is a powerful method to eliminate a large number of unimportant JavaScript errors. In this manner, you can concentrate exclusively on the mistakes caused by your JavaScript code.
For example, if you load debugging scripts or third-party scripts from another domain, selecting authorized domains enables you to ignore errors generated by such scripts automatically. Additionally, it saves you time in the event that someone copies and pastes all of your JavaScript onto another website or a local file and begins performing strange things with it, resulting in issues.
- Remove browser extension exceptions
When it comes to frontend monitoring, browser extensions provide a hurdle. Apart from the variety of browsers available, each is distinctive due to the extensive selection of browser extensions that your users can install. Some will almost certainly cause your JavaScript to crash, generating unnecessary noise. Because the majority of these crashes will be unrelated to your code, excluding them while establishing your frontend error monitoring is a sensible technique.
- Ignore out-of-date browsers
Older browser versions are far more difficult to work with because they are more prone to crash, and many don’t even include stack traces with error reports. Due to the fact that fewer customers are still running these earlier versions, they may be less critical to support. By suppressing crash notifications in older browser versions, you may focus on resolving faults that affect the majority of users.
- Make use of source maps
Probably the most useful piece of information to have while debugging with JavaScript — or any language, for that matter — is the line of code that crashed. The vast majority of you probably minify your JavaScript code. If this is the case, source maps must be configured. As the name says, source maps map your minified code to its real lines of code, and they un-minify mistakes automatically.
- Prioritize errors based on the number of impacted users
Because JavaScript monitoring can be chaotic, relying solely on raw error numbers will not provide you with a complete picture of your app’s health. In other circumstances, a significant increase in errors may harm only a single person. While you could certainly spend time examining that error, it is most likely not worthwhile. If you can begin prioritizing issues based on the number of affected users, you can begin making data-driven judgments and adopting a pragmatic approach to debugging.
Taking a step back from a single issue and examining your app’s overall health, you’ll want to examine user stability, which is one of two techniques to measure application stability.
- Create customized functions that are modular in nature
No single function should be required to do all tasks for the purposes of efficiency and readability. Rather than that, while writing functions focus on a single purpose they should achieve and build them specifically to perform that task. Give the function a name that corresponds to the task.
This makes the code easier to read for others. If only one task is being accomplished, the function will inherently be simpler and less extensive. Additionally, it enables you and your team to move this function to another program in the event that you require it in the future.
- Recognize and eliminate redundant code
You should search your code for instances of similar lines of duplicate code.
In these scenarios, you should encapsulate the duplicated code in a function and call the function in all previous instances when it was called. This reduces visual clutter and facilitates subsequent debugging by allowing the team to focus on one function rather than its various usage parts.
- Frequently comment on your code
Comments are an excellent method to describe the intent of a code fragment, saving your fellow developers the time required to figure it out on their own.
Additionally, it enables them to identify potential errors if the code does not do the purpose for which it is commented. Generally, it is recommended to leave a single comment per function.
If you’re wondering whether or not to leave a remark, simply do so! It can always be eliminated later if it becomes unnecessarily cluttered.
Take care not to overdo recursion
Take care not to nest recursive functions excessively. While nesting is capable of resolving a wide variety of issues, it is notoriously difficult to comprehend at a glance.
To avoid confusion, be mindful of places where recursive functions can be extracted from their nested state without incurring large runtime costs and extract them whenever possible. If you have three or more tiers of nested functions, chances are your colleagues will struggle to keep up.
Wrapping Up
The pursuit for cleaner code is a never-ending adventure, as best practices evolve in lockstep with the language. This process is enjoyable, and mastering best practices indicates true command of a programming language.
To get a head start on learning best practices and strategies for simplifying your JavaScript code, have a look at any of the JavaScript tutorials online to learn JavaScript and improve your skills.
If you follow the right JavaScript tutorial diligently and try to learn JS, by the end of it, you will be a proficient, modern JavaScript developer. The future for JavaScript developers is very bright with the ever-increasing popularity of JavaScript.
