I have been recently playing around with Lodash. Lodash is a JavaScript library of utility methods. It takes common, often repeated methods we use in JavaScript and simplifies them and in a lot of cases adds funtionality. Using Lodash can greatly reduce boilerplate code and get rid of side effects (think functional programming ! )
Here are a couple real quick examples-
-The for loop -
You know it - you love it. You type it out a billion times :
for ( let i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
}
using Lodash that becomes :
_.times(5, function() ) {
}
This removes the extra i variable which can create scope problems and just looks nice and clean !!!
-Random number -
The usual approach to a random number for 0-10 is something like :
Math.floor(Math.random() * 10+1)
Lodash is simply :
_.random(10)
Need a random number between 5 and 10 ? Easy :
_.random(5,10,true)
I went over just a couple real simple, very common examples to illustrate how simple using Lodash is. There are a lot of really interesting utilites Lodash can handle - a lot dealing with objects. Things like extending objects, removing properties from objects, and selecting specific properties from one object to create another to name a few. It can even help simplify error message when parsing .JSON.
I have really just begun to explore Lodash, but the more I learn about it the more impressed I am with it’s features. It is a powerful tool that I plan to utilize in my everday JavaScript coding !