JavaScript Numeric Separators
Writing good code is important -- writing code that's easily human readable is a next level skill. It's not often that APIs are introduced whose seemingly only useful function is making code more readable, but let me introduce you to JavaScript numeric separators: an API that lets developers use underscores to make numbers more readable!
Consider the following number in your code:
// No commas for numbers in JavaScript
const oneHundredThousand = 100000;
Large numbers have always been difficult to mentally parse for engineers, so using underscores to make code more readable is a total win:
const oneMillion = 1_000_000; // 1000000
const decimals = 1_000_00.01_02_03 // 100000.010203
The only real rule with numeric separators is that the number cannot start or end with an underscore.
Numeric separators within JavaScript seem like spec creators gifting developers a feature. As an engineer, I'll take all I can get. You never stop learning in the world of JavaScript!
I work with an awesome cast of developers at Mozilla, and one of them in Daniel Buchner. Daniel's shared with me an awesome strategy for detecting when nodes have been injected into a parent node without using the deprecated DOM Events API.
I remember the early days of JavaScript where you needed a simple function for just about everything because the browser vendors implemented features differently, and not just edge features, basic features, like addEventListener
and attachEvent
. Times have changed but there are still a few functions each developer should...
Honesty hour confession: file uploading within the web browser sucks. It just does. Like the ugly SELECT element, the file input is almost unstylable and looks different on different platforms. Add to those criticism the fact that we're all used to drag and drop operations...
One major gripe that we've always had about CSS is that creating layouts seems to be more difficult than it should be. We have, of course, adapted and mastered the techniques for creating layouts, but there's no shaking the feeling that there should be a...