Software engineering principles, from Robert C. Martin’s book Clean Code, adapted for JavaScript. This is not a style guide. It’s a guide to producing readable, reusable, and refactorable software in JavaScript.
Not every principle herein has to be strictly followed, and even fewer will be universally agreed upon. These are guidelines and nothing more, but they are ones codified over many years of collective experience by the authors of the Clean Code.
Our craft of software engineering is just a bit over 50 years old, and we are still learning a lot. When software architecture is as old as architecture itself, maybe then we will have harder rules to follow. For now, let these guidelines serve as a touchstone by which to assess the quality of the JavaScript code that you and your team produce.
One more thing: knowing these won’t immediately make you a better software developer, and working with them for many years doesn’t mean you won’t make mistakes. Every piece of code starts as a first draft, like wet clay getting shaped into its final form. Finally, we chisel away the imperfections when we review it with our peers. Don’t beat yourself up for first drafts that need improvement. Beat up the code instead!
Variables
Use meaningful and pronounceable variable names
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Use the same vocabulary for the same type of variable
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Use searchable names
We will read more code than we will ever write. It’s important that the code we do write is readable and searchable. By not naming variables that end up being meaningful for understanding our program, we hurt our readers. Make your names searchable. Tools like buddy.js and ESLint can help identify unnamed constants.
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Use explanatory variables
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Avoid Mental Mapping
Explicit is better than implicit.
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Don’t add unneeded context
If your class/object name tells you something, don’t repeat that in your variable name.
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Use default parameters instead of short-circuiting or conditionals
Default parameters are often cleaner than short-circuiting. Be aware that if you use them, your function will only provide default values for undefined arguments. Other “falsy” values such as ”, “”, false, null, 0, and NaN, will not be replaced by a default value.
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Functions
Function arguments (2 or fewer ideally)
Limiting the number of function parameters is incredibly important because it makes testing your function easier. Having more than three leads to a combinatorial explosion where you have to test tons of different cases with each separate argument.
One or two arguments are the ideal case, and three should be avoided if possible. Anything more than that should be consolidated. Usually, if you have more than two arguments then your function is trying to do too much. In cases where it’s not, most of the time a higher-level object will suffice as an argument.
Since JavaScript allows you to make objects on the fly, without a lot of class boilerplate, you can use an object if you are finding yourself needing a lot of arguments.
To make it obvious what properties the function expects, you can use the ES2015/ES6 destructuring syntax. This has a few advantages:
When someone looks at the function signature, it’s immediately clear what properties are being used.
It can be used to simulate named parameters.
Destructuring also clones the specified primitive values of the argument object passed into the function. This can help prevent side effects. Note: objects and arrays that are destructured from the argument object are NOT cloned.
Linters can warn you about unused properties, which would be impossible without destructuring.
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Functions should do one thing
This is by far the most important rule in software engineering. When functions do more than one thing, they are harder to compose, test, and reason about. When you can isolate a function to just one action, it can be refactored easily and your code will read much cleaner. If you take nothing else away from this guide other than this, you’ll be ahead of many developers.
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Function names should say what they do
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Functions should only be one level of abstraction
When you have more than one level of abstraction your function is usually doing too much. Splitting up functions leads to reusability and easier testing.
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Remove duplicate code
Do your absolute best to avoid duplicate code. Duplicate code is bad because it means that there’s more than one place to alter something if you need to change some logic.
Imagine if you run a restaurant and you keep track of your inventory: all your tomatoes, onions, garlic, spices, etc. If you have multiple lists that you keep this on, then all have to be updated when you serve a dish with tomatoes in them. If you only have one list, there’s only one place to update it!
Oftentimes you have duplicate code because you have two or more slightly different things, that share a lot in common, but their differences force you to have two or more separate functions that do much of the same things. Removing duplicate code means creating an abstraction that can handle this set of different things with just one function/module/class.
Getting the abstraction right is critical, that’s why you should follow the SOLID principles laid out in the Classes section. Bad abstractions can be worse than duplicate code, so be careful! Having said this, if you can make a good abstraction, do it! Don’t repeat yourself, otherwise, you’ll find yourself updating multiple places anytime you want to change one thing.
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Set default objects with Object.assign
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Don’t use flags as function parameters
Flags tell your user that this function does more than one thing. Functions should do one thing. Split out your functions if they are following different code paths based on a boolean.
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Avoid Side Effects (part 1)
A function produces a side effect if it does anything other than take a value in and return another value or values. A side effect could be writing to a file, modifying some global variable, or accidentally wiring all your money to a stranger.
Now, you do need to have side effects in a program on occasion. Like the previous example, you might need to write to a file. What you want to do is to centralize where you are doing this. Don’t have several functions and classes that write to a particular file. Have one service that does it. One and only one.
The main point is to avoid common pitfalls like sharing states between objects without any structure, using mutable data types that can be written to by anything, and not centralizing where your side effects occur. If you can do this, you will be happier than the vast majority of other programmers.
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Avoid Side Effects (part 2)
In JavaScript, some values are unchangeable (immutable) and some are changeable (mutable). Objects and arrays are two kinds of mutable values so it’s important to handle them carefully when they’re passed as parameters to a function. A JavaScript function can change an object’s properties or alter the contents of an array which could easily cause bugs elsewhere.
Suppose there’s a function that accepts an array parameter representing a shopping cart. If the function makes a change in that shopping cart array – by adding an item to purchase, for example – then any other function that uses that same cart array will be affected by this addition. That may be great, however, it could also be bad. Let’s imagine a bad situation:
The user clicks the “Purchase” button which calls a purchase function that spawns a network request and sends the cart array to the server. Because of a bad network connection, the purchase function has to keep retrying the request. Now, what if in the meantime the user accidentally clicks an “Add to Cart” button on an item they don’t actually want before the network request begins? If that happens and the network request begins, then that purchase function will send the accidentally added item because the cart array was modified.
A great solution would be for the addItemToCart function to always clone the cart, edit it, and return the clone. This would ensure that functions that are still using the old shopping cart wouldn’t be affected by the changes.
Two caveats to mention to this approach:
There might be cases where you actually want to modify the input object, but when you adopt this programming practice you will find that those cases are pretty rare. Most things can be refactored to have no side effects!
Cloning big objects can be very expensive in terms of performance. Luckily, this isn’t a big issue in practice because there are great libraries that allow this kind of programming approach to be fast and not as memory intensive as it would be for you to manually clone objects and arrays.
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Don’t write to global functions
Polluting globals is a bad practice in JavaScript because you could clash with another library and the user of your API would be none-the-wiser until they get an exception in production. Let’s think about an example: what if you wanted to extend JavaScript’s native Array method to have a diff method that could show the difference between two arrays? You could write your new function to the Array.prototype, but it could clash with another library that tried to do the same thing. What if that other library was just using diff to find the difference between the first and last elements of an array? This is why it would be much better to just use ES2015/ES6 classes and simply extend the Array global.
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Favor functional programming over imperative programming
JavaScript isn’t a functional language in the way that Haskell is, but it has a functional flavor to it. Functional languages can be cleaner and easier to test. Favor this style of programming when you can.
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Encapsulate conditionals
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Avoid negative conditionals
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Avoid conditionals
This seems like an impossible task. Upon first hearing this, most people say, “how am I supposed to do anything without an if statement?” The answer is that you can use polymorphism to achieve the same task in many cases. The second question is usually, “well that’s great but why would I want to do that?” The answer is a previous clean code concept we learned: a function should only do one thing. When you have classes and functions that have if statements, you are telling your user that your function does more than one thing. Remember, just do one thing.
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Avoid type-checking (part 1)
JavaScript is untyped, which means your functions can take any type of argument. Sometimes you are bitten by this freedom and it becomes tempting to do type-checking in your functions. There are many ways to avoid having to do this. The first thing to consider is consistent APIs.
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Avoid type-checking (part 2)
If you are working with basic primitive values like strings and integers, and you can’t use polymorphism but you still feel the need to type-check, you should consider using TypeScript. It is an excellent alternative to normal JavaScript, as it provides you with static typing on top of standard JavaScript syntax. The problem with manually type-checking normal JavaScript is that doing it well requires so much extra verbiage that the faux “type-safety” you get doesn’t make up for the lost readability. Keep your JavaScript clean, write good tests, and have good code reviews. Otherwise, do all of that but with TypeScript (which, as I said, is a great alternative!).
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Don’t over-optimize
Modern browsers do a lot of optimization under the hood at runtime. A lot of times, if you are optimizing then you are just wasting your time. There are good resources for seeing where optimization is lacking. Target those in the meantime, until they are fixed if they can be.
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Remove dead code
Dead code is just as bad as duplicate code. There’s no reason to keep it in your codebase. If it’s not being called, get rid of it! It will still be safe in your version history if you still need it.
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Objects and Data Structures
Use getters and setters
Using getters and setters to access data on objects could be better than simply looking for a property on an object. “Why?” you might ask. Well, here’s an unorganized list of reasons why:
When you want to do more beyond getting an object property, you don’t have to look up and change every accessor in your codebase.
Makes adding validation simple when doing a set.
Encapsulates the internal representation.
Easy to add logging and error handling when getting and setting.
You can lazy load your object’s properties, let’s say getting it from a server.
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Make objects have private members
This can be accomplished through closures (for ES5 and below).
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Classes
Prefer ES2015/ES6 classes over ES5 plain functions
It’s very difficult to get a readable class inheritance, construction, and method definitions for classical ES5 classes. If you need inheritance (and be aware that you might not), then prefer ES2015/ES6 classes. However, prefer small functions over classes until you find yourself needing larger and more complex objects.
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Use method chaining
This pattern is very useful in JavaScript and you see it in many libraries such as jQuery and Lodash. It allows your code to be expressive, and less verbose. For that reason, I say, use method chaining and take a look at how clean your code will be. In your class functions, simply return this at the end of every function, and you can chain further class methods onto it.
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Prefer composition over inheritance
As stated famously in Design Patterns by the Gang of Four, you should prefer composition over inheritance where you can. There are lots of good reasons to use inheritance and lots of good reasons to use composition. The main point of this maxim is that if your mind instinctively goes for an inheritance, try to think if composition could model your problem better. In some cases, it can.
You might be wondering then, “when should I use inheritance?” It depends on your problem at hand, but this is a decent list of when inheritance makes more sense than composition:
Your inheritance represents an “is-a” relationship and not a “has-a” relationship (Human->Animal vs. User->UserDetails).
You can reuse code from the base classes (Humans can move like all animals).
You want to make global changes to derived classes by changing a base class. (Change the caloric expenditure of all animals when they move).
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SOLID
Single Responsibility Principle (SRP)
As stated in Clean Code, “There should never be more than one reason for a class to change”. It’s tempting to jam-pack a class with a lot of functionality, like when you can only take one suitcase on your flight. The issue with this is that your class won’t be conceptually cohesive and it will give it many reasons to change. Minimizing the number of times you need to change a class is important. It’s important because if too much functionality is in one class and you modify a piece of it, it can be difficult to understand how that will affect other dependent modules in your codebase.
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Open/Closed Principle (OCP)
As stated by Bertrand Meyer, “software entities (classes, modules, functions, etc.) should be open for extension, but closed for modification.” What does that mean though? This principle basically states that you should allow users to add new functionalities without changing existing code.
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Liskov Substitution Principle (LSP)
This is a scary term for a very simple concept. It’s formally defined as “If S is a subtype of T, then objects of type T may be replaced with objects of type S (i.e., objects of type S may substitute objects of type T) without altering any of the desirable properties of that program (correctness, a task performed, etc.).” That’s an even scarier definition.
The best explanation for this is if you have a parent class and a child class, then the base class and child class can be used interchangeably without getting incorrect results. This might still be confusing, so let’s take a look at the classic Square-Rectangle example. Mathematically, a square is a rectangle, but if you model it using the “is-a” relationship via inheritance, you quickly get into trouble.
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Interface Segregation Principle (ISP)
JavaScript doesn’t have interfaces so this principle doesn’t apply as strictly as others. However, it’s important and relevant even with JavaScript’s lack of type system.
ISP states that “Clients should not be forced to depend upon interfaces that they do not use.” Interfaces are implicit contracts in JavaScript because of duck typing.
A good example to look at that demonstrates this principle in JavaScript is for classes that require large settings objects. Not requiring clients to set up huge amounts of options is beneficial, because most of the time they won’t need all of the settings. Making them optional helps prevent having a “fat interface”.
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Dependency Inversion Principle (DIP)
This principle states two essential things:
High-level modules should not depend on low-level modules. Both should depend on abstractions.
Abstractions should not depend upon details. Details should depend on abstractions.
This can be hard to understand at first, but if you’ve worked with AngularJS, you’ve seen an implementation of this principle in the form of Dependency Injection (DI). While they are not identical concepts, DIP keeps high-level modules from knowing the details of their low-level modules and setting them up. It can accomplish this through DI. A huge benefit of this is that it reduces the coupling between modules. Coupling is a very bad development pattern because it makes your code hard to refactor.
As stated previously, JavaScript doesn’t have interfaces so the abstractions that are dependent upon are implicit contracts. That is to say, the methods and properties that an object/class exposes to another object/class. In the example below, the implicit contract is that any Request module for an InventoryTracker will have a request items method.
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Testing
Testing is more important than shipping. If you have no tests or an inadequate amount, then every time you ship code you won’t be sure that you didn’t break anything. Deciding on what constitutes an adequate amount is up to your team, but having 100% coverage (all statements and branches) is how you achieve very high confidence and developer peace of mind. This means that in addition to having a great testing framework, you also need to use a good coverage tool.
There’s no excuse to not write tests. There are plenty of good JS test frameworks, so find one that your team prefers. When you find one that works for your team, then aim to always write tests for every new feature/module you introduce. If your preferred method is Test Driven Development (TDD), that is great, but the main point is to just make sure you are reaching your coverage goals before launching any feature, or refactoring an existing one.
Single concept per test
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Concurrency
Use Promises, not callbacks
Callbacks aren’t clean, and they cause excessive amounts of nesting. With ES2015/ES6, Promises are a built-in global type. Use them!
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Async/Await is even cleaner than Promises
Promises are a very clean alternative to callbacks, but ES2017/ES8 brings async and await which offer an even cleaner solution. All you need is a function that is prefixed in an async keyword, and then you can write your logic imperatively without a then chain of functions. Use this if you can take advantage of ES2017/ES8 features today!
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Error Handling
Thrown errors are a good thing! They mean the runtime has successfully identified when something in your program has gone wrong and it’s letting you know by stopping function execution on the current stack, killing the process (in Node), and notifying you in the console with a stack trace.
Don’t ignore caught errors
Doing nothing with a caught error doesn’t give you the ability to ever fix or react to said error. Logging the error to the console (console.log) isn’t much better as oftentimes it can get lost in a sea of things printed to the console. If you wrap any bit of code in a try/catch it means you think an error may occur there and therefore you should have a plan, or create a code path, for when it occurs.
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