JavaScript
is a browser-based language used for adding interactivity to web
pages and it has evolved extremely over the past few years. The
language was first implemented by Netscape Communications Corp. in
Netscape Navigator 2 beta (1995).
It
can be used to improve HTML pages and is easily embedded in HTML
code. It is an interpreted language and it doesn't need to be
compiled. JavaScript renders web pages in an interactive and dynamic
fashion. This allowing the pages to react to events, exhibit special
effects, accept variable text, validate data, create cookies, detect
a user’s browser, etc.
Let’s
have a look at some of the important JavaScript tips, tricks and
tools. These can be some great web design inspirations.
1. Write
JavaScript today with Babel
Not
all browsers understand ES2015 code yet, so in order to use the
latest features of the language today, many people use a tool like
Babel. This transforms ES2015 code into normal ES5 JavaScript code
which all browsers can interpret. It is pretty common for developers
to include Babel in their deployment process through build systems
such as gulp or webpack.
2. New
methods of declaring variables
JavaScript
has introduced two new ways of declaring variables: let and const.
let is used when a variable will be reassigned, whereas const keeps a
variable from being reassigned.
The
main advantage of using both let and const over var is that when
using var variables get scoped to the top of the current function,
therefore making the variable available to the whole function.
In
contrast, let and const are scoped to their closest block, allowing
developers to declare variables within if, while, for and even
switch blocks, without worrying about the variable scope leaking
outside of that context.
3. Use arrow functions
to keep 'this' intact
Another
important feature added to JavaScript is arrow functions. These have
the ability to keep this context intact, especially when using it
within callbacks that might get called from somewhere else (i.e.
adding an event listener with jQuery, and so on). Arrow functions can
replace the need to add .bind(this) at the end of a function
declaration.
There
are two main ways of writing arrow functions:
one-liners
multiple-liners.
One-liners
have only one expression and return value of that given expression,
without the need for curly braces.
Whereas
Multiple-liners, on the other hand, have curly braces and the return
keyword will be used explicitly.
4. Replace
'for' loops with 'map'
Let’s
say we have an array of numbers and we want to produce another array
by doubling all of the numbers from the first array. One method is to
do by declaring an empty array, write a for loop, and set a number in
the second array by looking up the index on the first array and
doubling it.
We
can use a more concise solution by mapping an array to another array:
[1,
2, 3].map((num) => num * 2); // [2, 4, 6]
5. Replace 'for' loops with
'filter'
Let’s
suppose we have an array of numbers and we want to produce another
array containing only even numbers from the first array. One way of
doing this would be to declare an empty array, write a for loop, and
write an if statement to check if the number at the index is even.
For
example, we could use the filter method available for arrays:
[4,
7, 2, 3].filter((num) => num % 2 === 0); // [4, 2]
6. Redux:
State of management for all
One
of the hardest parts of writing apps with highly dynamic user
interfaces is keeping up with the application’s state. This is the
problem the Redux library addresses. Redux is commonly used alongside
React and is slowly being adopted by the Angular community. It helps
in writing applications which behaves consistently and it offers a
great developer experience. So, in case if you are writing an app
that might become very large, one must consider using Redeloper tool offerings. We will see more live
programming features come online as the JavaScript moves deeper into
unified applicationux.
JavaScript
contains the richest array of developer tools that can be seen for
any language. In the future, we might see additional consistent
integrated dev
state and immutability.
