#javascript

Last week at work, we implemented a caching mechanism for Chargebee API calls so that we could avoid API restrictions with Chargebee. This meant that we could memorize the result of an API call in our persistent store.

With JavaScript being a single-threaded language, it never occurred to me how limiting this fundamental flaw was until I kept hearing about how advantageous languages such as Java, Rust and Go handled concurrency. To me, firing off multiple promises in JavaScript was good enough. Not until I experienced limitations around synchronous blocking code in React and how it affected the user's experience. This is when I started to explore why a single-threaded language simply cannot handle parallel processing well.

JavaScript's reduce array method can be incredibly useful in data transformations and building data structures, while at the same time iterating through an existing data structure. It is great for building arrays, objects, strings, or keeping an integer count.

Have you ever wondered why your component is re-rendering multiple time consecutively when you only expect it to re-render once? Perhaps you update some local state and somehow multiple renders occur as a result? Lets take this hooks based example:

Date and time can be tricky when you consider time zones, client side vs server side time and determining the best patterns for handling database records based on date and time. Considerations on how to store date and time server side usually comes down to how easy it is to retrieve a record based on some time fields, how easy it is to manipulate and how readable the format is.

So recently, one of my clients had asked for some new features for a Dog Walking mobile app that was deployed earlier this year. I hadn't touched the code base in months and when I re-opened the code base to see how I would implement these features, it dawned on me that it was a bit of a dumpster fire 🔥. Keeping in mind that this was written about a year ago, a time where my programming skills weren't anywhere as polished as it is today. I decided, that the only way moving forward (with confidence) was to upgrade both the backend (Node.js/JavaScript) and frontend (React Native/JavaScript) to TypeScript.

Programming paradigms refer to the style of programming you choose to implement in your codebase. The paradigms are a way to logically write and structure your code. It is not a strict set of rules set by your browser, IDE or compiler, however certain languages or frameworks may be opinionated about which paradigm is preferred. We will be exploring three paradigms with working examples and comparisons. Firstly, a general overview of each paradigm:

Ever since I learnt how to create websites using React, my go to boilerplate starter code was to use Create React App. It is the easiest way to learn React and the fastest way to get a website up and running. After creating my own website using Create React App, I quickly found the pitfalls of having a client rendered SPA (Single Page Application).

Ok, the title is a bit dramatic, but I thought it would be fun to try this click bait thing. Now that I have your attention, I want to explain why I moved from JavaScript to TypeScript. For all of those living under a rock (much like myself up until now), TypeScript is a superset of JavaScript which gives JavaScript super powers to eliminate bugs during development time. It is basically JavaScript on steroids.

After 4 long months and 475 hours of development I have finally deployed my first mobile app to their respective app stores. In the grand scheme of things I am not sure if this is a long time for developing a mobile app or if it's a relatively quick development lifecycle. To get closer to a definitive answer, i'll break down what the app is and what's its scope, what technologies I used to create the app, the motivation behind the app and what I hope to get out of creating the app.

Expo is a great third party wrapper for React Native that aids the speed of development and deployment. The Expo SDK provides developers with a lot of mobile native features out of the box and does all the heavy lifting. Another great feature of Expo is the ability use their mobile app to test your app on real devices without having to use Android Studio or XCode.

In September Moment.js officially declared their project entered maintenance mode. This means that no further development would be done and that users should find an alternative.