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Modern JavaScript, 10 things you should be using, starting today

Chris Noring on June 12, 2022

Follow me on Twitter, happy to take your suggestions on topics or improvements /Chris You may be completely new to JavaScript or you may have onl...

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Randall • Jun 13 '22

Without the spread operator, you can do:

let firstHalf = [ 'one', 'two'];
let secondHalf = ['three', 'four'].concat(firstHalf);

I kind of prefer that way, since it doesn't involve extra syntax. But I'm used to using the spread operator now.

samselfridge • Jun 15 '22

The fact that this results in an out-of-order array called 'secondHalf' that has ALL the values on it is still annoying...but that's OPs fault not yours @randall

Alex Grad • Jun 16 '22

[].concat(firstHalf, secondHalf);

samselfridge • Jun 16 '22

const fullArray = [].concat(firstHalf, secondHalf);

payapula • Jun 16 '22

Thanks for the article!

One correction:

find(), finds an item in list else null

find() actually returns undefined if no value is matched in the array.

ssenyonga yasin • Jun 22 '22

good items here

Aziz Kaukawala • Jun 13 '22 • Edited

Great post! 5th & 10th points were my major take away! Thanks!

I don't know if this would be helpful.

For defining constants, instead of regular object,

const config = {
    APP_ENV: 'local',
    API_TOKEN: 'BREWING_SOMETHING_AWESOME',
}

define constants with Object.freeze().

const config = Object.freeze({
    APP_ENV: 'local',
    API_TOKEN: 'BREWING_SOMETHING_AWESOME',
});

This way, you won't be able to change the entries accidentally.

Happy Coding 🧡

Chris Cook • Jun 13 '22

Great post with short and concise examples!
I'd like to add one more example for array destructuring. You can use the fact that arrays are objects and the array indices are object keys. That means with key 0 you get the fist element, but more importantly with a computed property key like [length-2] you can get an element in the middle of the array which is not possible with array destructuring and rest parameters:

const arr = [ 'one', 'two', 'three', 'four'];

const { 0: one, 1: two, length, [length-2]: three, 3: four } = arr;

console.log({ one, two, three, four })

codesandbox.io/s/fancy-dust-24cwhr...

samselfridge • Jun 15 '22

This seems like one of those things thats neat, but actually using it in practice will just result in some weird behavior thats difficult to track down...

Or that could just be my inner-old-man

Chris Cook • Jun 16 '22

Extracting elements at the beginning of the array should be should be equivalent using array or object destructuring, because if the index does not exist the element is a going to be undefined in both cases: codesandbox.io/s/unruffled-babbage...

And if you want to extract only the last element (not possible using array destructuring), you have to use the length to calc the last index in the way as a direct array index access via brackets: codesandbox.io/s/elated-tdd-6nte4r...

Nevertheless, I wouldn't recommend object destructuring over array destructuring in all cases, but knowing about it shouldn't hurt either.

Gustavo Isensee • Jun 15 '22 • Edited

The good news for me at least, is that I use them all!

. + const and let.

nice post!

Andrew Baisden • Jun 14 '22

Good post full of practical examples thanks for sharing it with the community.

Shivali Pandey • Jun 15 '22

Good one

Madza • Jun 16 '22 • Edited

Some good tips in here 👍✨💯

Jason Stathum • Jun 16 '22

Thank you for sharing, I've learned a lot.

MJCoder • Jun 15 '22

Thank you for the article, straight to the point with really good examples. Loads of stuff to learn and implement.

Gabriel Pedroza • Jun 13 '22

Nice job! The only thing that you might reconsider to change if you do is the async/await example. When fetching multiple data from different api's, you should use promise.all instead of async so you can fetch all the data at once instead of waiting for the first one to be finished and to start the second fetch and so on.

PhyberApex • Jun 15 '22

Not really. If you look at the example he uses the return value of the first await for the second one, so he can't send them in parallel. It's exactly the use case for async/await :)

If there are no dependencies, I'd agree to use promises and a promise.all()

~Cheers

Ganesh Patil • Jun 13 '22

New things to learn thankyou for sharing

kart jim • Jun 15 '22

It's very useful!

Andrey Gurtovoy • Jun 13 '22

looks like a great article for 2015)

Chris Noring • Jun 14 '22

you don't agree with the advice?

Andrey Gurtovoy • Jul 3 '22

I can really believe that there are times when, due to an outdated environment, developers could not install babel for themselves all these 7 years. But I have not seen developers who have not changed jobs for 7 years. Usually it is 1-4 years, and then interesting offers on the labor market tell you to change jobs

Lars Rye Jeppesen • Jun 15 '22

Hehe totally my thoughts. ( I know, bad me bad me)

Renato Rodrigues • Jun 15 '22

Now that IE is retired, it looks like the IE team started writing JS articles

Ben Cullen • Jun 21 '22

This is a good article in the sense that nothing totally new or ground breaking but some excellent explanations and examples. Thank for sharing.

Mike DiGioia • Jun 15 '22 • Edited

I don't think your NO spread for objects is right, I would likely do it like

const heroWIthWeapon = Object.assign({}, hero, {weapon: "sword"})

Chris Noring • Jun 23 '22

hi Mike, are you saying this code should use Object.assign()?

let keys = Object.keys(hero);
let obj = {};

for(var i=0; i< keys.length; i++) {
   obj[keys[i]] = keys[props[i]];
}

Because my point was to showcase how painful it can be without spread? Help me understand, thanks :)

Mike DiGioia • Jun 23 '22

I get that, but just because you can do something more painfully doesn't mean that it can't be done simpler. On top of that, there is no assignment of the weapon key.

I think it can be argued that
{ ...hero, weapon: "sword"} is easier to read than Object.assign({}, hero, {weapon:"sword")

Chris Noring • Jun 23 '22

yes I agree that spread is easier to read than Object.assign().. so are you saying that it doesn't have to be as painful as looping through the keys but rather Object.assign is there and if you want to improve on that use spread syntax?

Mike DiGioia • Jun 24 '22

I think that is fair to say. Since prior to browser support that was what the transpilers often did for you.

Andrew Bridge • Jun 23 '22

I was thinking exactly this.

Even better: with this approach, you can choose to merge elements into an pre-existing object which can help with keeping object references and reduces the need for the engine to garbage collect short-lived objects.

Feels like a better approach!

Morgan Conrad • Jun 15 '22 • Edited

The destructuring argument is unconvincing: the "old fashioned" code is extremely clear, easier to update if the structure of the object changes, and allows one to change the variable name, if needed, for even more clarity, e.g.

const nameNeedsValidation = req.param.name.

As others have noted, the Object Spread comment about needing looping is wrong: Object.assign() does the job nicely. IMO, it is also clearer than using spread, but I admit that's just my opinion.

Patrick Bradshaw • Jun 17 '22

Destructuring like so:

const { name: nameNeedsValidation } = req.param

Creates a variable called nameNeedsValidation from the property req.param.name.

I find it preferable to destructure in the case of when I'm working on a React class component and the state object is complex (10+ properties).

In the template, instead of having to write:

<>
   <h3>Hi I'm {this.state.name}</h3>
   <span>Name: {this.state.name}</span>
   <span>Address: {this.state.address}</span>
   <span>Zip Code: {this.state.zipCode}</span>
</>

I can just write:

const { name, address, zipCode } = this.state
//...
<>
   <h3>Hi I'm {name}</h3>
   <span>Name: {name}</span>
   <span>Address: {address}</span>
   <span>Zip Code: {zipCode}</span>
</>

Note that this would be unconventional:

const name = this.state.name
const address = this.state.address
const zipCode = this.state.zipCode
// ...

React class components are "old school" now I think, but destructuring is convenient any time you have to work with a complex object in which the properties have to referenced multiple times. That's the use case I'm most familiar with.