Book Image

Clean Code in JavaScript

By : James Padolsey
Book Image

Clean Code in JavaScript

By: James Padolsey

Overview of this book

Building robust apps starts with creating clean code. In this book, you’ll explore techniques for doing this by learning everything from the basics of JavaScript through to the practices of clean code. You’ll write functional, intuitive, and maintainable code while also understanding how your code affects the end user and the wider community. The book starts with popular clean-coding principles such as SOLID, and the Law of Demeter (LoD), along with highlighting the enemies of writing clean code such as cargo culting and over-management. You’ll then delve into JavaScript, understanding the more complex aspects of the language. Next, you’ll create meaningful abstractions using design patterns, such as the Class Pattern and the Revealing Module Pattern. You’ll explore real-world challenges such as DOM reconciliation, state management, dependency management, and security, both within browser and server environments. Later, you’ll cover tooling and testing methodologies and the importance of documenting code. Finally, the book will focus on advocacy and good communication for improving code cleanliness within teams or workplaces, along with covering a case study for clean coding. By the end of this book, you’ll be well-versed with JavaScript and have learned how to create clean abstractions, test them, and communicate about them via documentation.
Table of Contents (26 chapters)
1
Section 1: What is Clean Code Anyway?
7
Section 2: JavaScript and Its Bits
13
Section 3: Crafting Abstractions
16
Section 4: Testing and Tooling
20
Section 5: Collaboration and Making Changes

Objects

Everything that is not a primitive value in JavaScript can be considered an object. Even functions are, in fact, specialized objects; their only difference is that they can be invoked. Usually, however, when we use the term Object, we are referring to a plain object that is normally declared as an object literal delimited by curly braces, with a set of key-value pairs within:

const animal = {
name: 'Duck',
hobby: 'Paddling'
};

You can also instantiate an object via the Object constructor and then add properties directly:

const animal = new Object();
animal.name = 'Duck';
animal.hobby = 'Paddling';

Even though they are equivalent, it's preferable to use an object literal in most situations as it is simpler to declare and to read, especially if there are many properties. It also has the added benefit of allowing you to create and...