Posts

Create a simple to-do API using FeathersJS v4. FeathersJS v4 launched yesterday, and I wanted to see what changed. Of course, I wasn’t going to write a post just about v4 - I have not kept up with the Feathers ecosystem. So, let’s refresh our mind and soul by building a quick API and see how the story develops. We can start with Feathers using their CLI or with just a NPM install. We will use feathers CLI for the purpose of this post because of two reasons - ...

Here’s a set of VSCode shortcuts that are part of my daily workflow for working with files! We have seen a few VSCode shortcuts earlier, but none ever said - I had enough of them shortcuts. So, here goes. 1. Search text in all files Search text in within all files in workspace using .. Ctrl + Shift + F I used Explorer and Everything before incorporating this extension in my workflow. The biggest advantage is having to to search within the workspace folder - have all other files open in context of current work. ...

Is there really a problem with NPM use? Short answer: no. Long answer: it’s complicated. I am nothing but thankful for the tonnes of NPM packages. I would never have built web applications that could support thousands of users all by myself without all those hundreds of packages. There are thousands of developers (if not millions) who do much better than what I could. With NPM to support what I do - I just identify the right solution, search in NPM / GitHub, and most of the times find it. At least I find something in the general area of what I am looking for. ...

Flatten recursive arrays using Array.flat(). We have seen how to flatten arrays before. Array.flat() is quite useful to flatten arrays in one statement and output a simpler array. But, what about situations where you do not know the depth of array hierarchy - const nums = [[1, 2], [3, 4], [[5], [6]], [[[7]]]]; Fear not. Array.flat() takes in an argument to flatten to a specific depth or flatten everything. console.log(nums.flat()); // [ 1, 2, 3, 4, [ 5 ], [ 6 ], [ [ 7 ] ] ] console.log(nums.flat(2)); // [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, [7]]; console.log(nums.flat(Infinity)); // [ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 ]

Remember to filter your arrays before doing array-wise operation. Filtering falsy values must be the first operation even if you do not have specific filtering requirements. Consider this array - const nums = [1, 3, 5, undefined, 7, 9, null]; If you are in control of the data source, you can very well expect to filter only when necessary. But any kind of array operations, or data from external systems can cause all kinds of unexpected results. We have seen how unexpected values impact array sort before. As you can imagine filtering goes beyond a simple array sort. ...

Can you use the Date object without brackets? Yes, apparently - to a friend’s delight and my chagrin. I should know better than to rely on my somewhat shaky Javascript knowledge. This is the format for a sane Date code.. const today = new Date(); console.log(today); // 2019-08-23T09:31:12.181Z If you want to pass parameters - const firstDay = new Date(2019, 0, 1); console.log(firstDay); // 2019-01-01T00:00:00.000Z This simply means that firstDay is created by passing variables to Date, which are in turn being used by the date constructor. ...

Why do I use GraphQL? Also, the case for not using GraphQL. You must have seen the previous post where I waxed eloquent about how I mess up my Rest APIs. There was no way I would be satisfied doing that to a single technology stack. Ergo, GraphQL. What is the need for GraphQL? Google GraphQL and refer docs- there are smarter people with better answers than me. But, since the Internet can be a scary place and I love to write about things that I am not an expert in - here’s a gist about what I think. ...

How not to design Rest services? This is not a theoritical introduction to Rest - there’s something called the ‘Great Internet’ for that. But, what I do want to (cautiously) write about is how I mess up the design principles carefully laid out by smarter people. Practice 1: Use verbs in resource names We typically use the following API names - GET https://api.com/contact PATCH https://api.com/contact This is not a problem in the normal course of designing services. But, when it is time to get some complex queries - I always do a rain dance and come up with stupid names. ...

Load external scripts asynchronously in Javascript. We have seen about loading functions asynchronously in Javascript. But, what about the scripts that you load from other files, CDNs or other external sources You can do a simple async to load scripts without impacting the loading speed as perceived by the user. <script src="loadMe.js" async></script> This will load loadMe in the background without impacting any elements displayed on the page. Alternatively, you can also do a defer. ...

Arguments object throws an error when used with arrow functions. Consider this code - function getSum() { return arguments[0] + arguments[1]; } console.log(getSum(1, 2)); // 3 The result is as expected. But, you cannot do the same using an arrow function. const getSum = () => { return arguments[0] + arguments[1]; }; console.log(getSum(1, 2)); // gobbledygook or error You will see a function definition, or an error depending on the runtime engine. Arrow functions do not provide the binding for arguments object like regular functions. ...