Safe Function Calls with attempt

By  on  

As browser implement new APIs, the truth is that though the APIs provide more power, I'd argue they bring about more volatility.  Whether it's the API that's the issue or us trying to use it, you're bound to run into errors which may break parts of your app.  Crap.  And a try/catch blocks everywhere?  Bleh.  That's why I use an attempt function in such cases:  it keeps the code cleaner and with less side effects.

The JavaScript

What we'll do is essentially call the function for the user, catching any crap that comes along:

function attempt(fn, args, binding) {
	try {
		return fn.apply(binding, args);
	} catch(e) {
		console.log('Exception, fix me please', e);
	}
}

// Use it!
attempt(function() {
	/* volatile stuff */
}, ['argOne', someVar], this);

Provide the function, args, and binding and you're all set.  You can use anonymous functions, named functions, whatever.  And you don't need to add your own try/catch blocks everywhere.  Nothing groundbreaking in the code above but it's safe and easy!

Recent Features

Incredible Demos

  • By
    WebKit Marquee CSS:  Bringin’ Sexy Back

    We all joke about the days of Web yesteryear.  You remember them:  stupid animated GIFs (flames and "coming soon" images, most notably), lame counters, guestbooks, applets, etc.  Another "feature" we thought we had gotten rid of was the marquee.  The marquee was a rudimentary, javascript-like...

  • By
    Save Web Form Content Using Control + S

    We've all used word processing applications like Microsoft Word and if there's one thing they've taught you it's that you need to save every few seconds in anticipation of the inevitable crash. WordPress has mimicked this functionality within their WYSIWYG editor and I use it...

Discussion

    Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!