JavaScript !!!

undefined is not a function

About: @bahmutov

• Startups / medium size / MathWorks
• VP of Eng at Cypress.io

• Computer vision background (C/C++/C#)

CoffeeScript then JavaScript

• Hundreds of OSS projects
  • glebbahmutov.com
• Hundreds of blog posts
  • glebbahmutov.com/blog
• 50 meetup and conference decks
  • slides.com/bahmutov

About: @bahmutov

https://glebbahmutov.com/game-of-github/

A software product

User

Data

Servers

UI

A software product

User

Data

Servers

UI

JavaScript

http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2017/06/08/language-rankings-6-17/

JavaScript

Legend

<div onclick="alert('hi')">Click me</div>

Modern JavaScript

in the Browser

<script src="app.js"></script>
<div id="app" />

Single Page Applications (SPA)

Modern JavaScript

in the Browser

No longer relevant

JScript

VBScript

Dart

Browser APIs

Payment Request API

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/SpeechSynthesis/speak

Speech Synthesis API

https://www.w3.org/TR/payment-request/

https://cloud.google.com/speech/

Speech Recognition API

https://whatwebcando.today/

Replacing mobile applications

Modern JavaScript

Browser/mobile

Two choices

Progressive Web App

2nd: ReactNative

Code Web App convert to Native app

node sever.js -p 3000

Modern JavaScript

on Server

const http = require('http')
const hostname = '127.0.0.1'
const port = 3000

const server = http.createServer((req, res) => {
  res.statusCode = 200
  res.setHeader('Content-Type', 'text/plain')
  res.end('Hello World\n')
})
server.listen(port, hostname, () => {
  console.log(`Server running at 
    http://${hostname}:${port}/`)
})

https://nodejs.org/en/about/

https://nodesource.com/blog/the-enterprise-node-community/

https://nodesource.com/blog/the-enterprise-node-community/

https://nodesource.com/blog/the-enterprise-node-community/

https://nodesource.com/blog/the-enterprise-node-community/

https://github.com/nodejs/Release

Modern JavaScript

on Desktop

electron.atom.io

Build cross platform desktop apps with JavaScript, HTML, and CSS

# Clone the Quick Start repository
$ git clone https://github.com/electron/electron-quick-start

# Go into the repository
$ cd electron-quick-start

# Install the dependencies and run
$ npm install && npm start

https://github.com/electron/electron-quick-start

Cypress.io E2E Test Runner

Qt, Java, ... Node 👍

https://www.cypress.io/

Cypress GUI is a web app itself running as Electron application

if [ -d "foo" ] then:
  cp -r foo bar
fi

Works (Linux)

Mostly works (Darwin)

🔥  (Windows)

I don't want to learn your cryptic script commands

const shell = require('shelljs')
shell.set('-v') // verbose
shell.set('-e') // any error is fatal
shell.exec('npm run binary-build ...')
shell.exec('npm run binary-zip')
shell.ls('-l', '*.zip')
// more commands

CI requires only Node

make, curl, git, bash, zip, s3cmd

Modern JavaScript

Let's look at the JavaScript language

Modern JavaScript

• 1996: Netscape asks Ecma to make a "standard" JavaScript specifications

• 1997 Ecma publishes EcmaScript standard

Modern JavaScript

EcmaScript (ES) = standard

JavaScript = implementation

*

Modern JavaScript

• June 2011: EcmaScript 5.1 (ES5)

All modern browsers

Modern JavaScript

• June 2011: EcmaScript 5.1 (ES5)

var x = 'foo'
var y = 42
function add(a, b) {
  return a + b
}
add(x, y)
// EcmaScript has no input / output ⚠️

Modern JavaScript

• June 2011: EcmaScript 5.1 (ES5)

function double(x) {
  return x + x
}
function greatherThan4(x) {
  return x > 4
}
['1', '2', '3'].map(parseFloat)
  .map(double)
  .filter(greatherThan4)
  .forEach(console.log)

Modern JavaScript

• June 2011: EcmaScript 5.1 (ES5)

function double(x) {
  return x + x
}
function greatherThan4(x) {
  return x > 4
}
['1', '2', '3'].map(parseFloat)
  .map(double)
  .filter(greatherThan4)
  .forEach(console.log)

Pass functions as arguments

Modern JavaScript

• June 2015: EcmaScript 2015 (ES6)

The present*

* mostly

Modern JavaScript

• June 2015: EcmaScript 2015 (ES6)

const x = 'foo'
[1, 2, 3].map(x => x + x)
console.log(`x = ${x}`)
// and lots of other things...

es6-features.org

Modern JavaScript

• June 2016: EcmaScript 2016

[1, 2, 3].includes(2) // true
2 ** 3 // 8

Modern JavaScript

• June 2017: EcmaScript 2017

async function userName () {
  const user = await fetch()
  return user.name
}
// plus a few other features

Modern JavaScript

• June 2017: EcmaScript 2017

async function userName () {
  try {
    const user = await fetch()
    return user.name
  } catch (err) {
    // deal with error
  }
}

How an idea becomes an EcmaScript feature

tc39.github.io/process-document

How an idea becomes an EcmaScript feature

I want JavaScript to have X

an idea is born

How an idea becomes an EcmaScript feature

Discussion, demos, polyfills

Feature gets a "champion"

Stage 1: proposal

How an idea becomes an EcmaScript feature

TC39 committee: about 25 members

Mozilla, Google, Apple, Intel, universities

Stage 1: proposal

How an idea becomes an EcmaScript feature

Draft and precise spec language is being developed

Stage 2: draft

How an idea becomes an EcmaScript feature

All semantics, syntax and API are completed described

Stage 3: candidate

How an idea becomes an EcmaScript feature

Feature has tests

Two reference implementations

Stage 4: finished

How an idea becomes an EcmaScript feature

Stage 4 features as of March

become part of the standard published in June

https://github.com/tc39/ecma262

https://github.com/tc39/ecma262

What does a browser support?

kangax.github.io/compat-table/es6

try {
  eval('2 ** 8')
} catch () {
  // ** is not supported
}
// ** is ✅

https://github.com/getify/es-feature-tests

What does a browser support?

kangax.github.io/compat-table/es6

• Evergreen browsers are 100% ES2015/2016/2017 compatible

*

* except for (maybe) ES6 modules

What does a browser support?

http://www.webbrowsercompatibility.com/es6/tablet-phone/

• Mobile browsers really patchy

1: Adding polyfills

Detect and polyfill only what's missing with modernizr.com

<script src="polyfills.js"></script>
<script>
[1, 2, 3].includes(2) // works now
</script>

1: Adding polyfills

Does not work with every feature

<script src="polyfills.js"></script>
<script>
2 ** 3
// SyntaxError
</script>

2: Transpiling

Rewrite code to older standard

2 ** 3 // app.js

babel app.js

Math.pow(2, 3)

ES2016

ES5

* not every feature can be transpiled

*

Use a Modern Browser

https://glebbahmutov.com/blog/local-overrides/

• Local overrides demo

• Code scripts demo

https://github.com/bahmutov/code-snippets

NPM Registry

aka OSS heaven

source: http://www.modulecounts.com

source: https://libraries.io

source: https://libraries.io

source: https://npms.io

Creating your own module

$ npm init -y
Wrote to my-app/package.json
{
  "name": "my-app",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "",
  "main": "index.js",
  "scripts": {
    "test": "exit 1"
  },
  "keywords": [],
  "author": "",
  "license": "ISC"
}

$ yo node-bahmutov
{
  "name": "stop-build",
  "version": "0.0.0-development",
  "description": "Exits with non-zero code if there are modified Git files",
  "author": "Gleb Bahmutov <gleb.bahmutov@gmail.com>",
  "bugs": "https://github.com/bahmutov/stop-build/issues",
  "config": {
    "next-update": {
      "commands": {
        "pre-git": "./.git/hooks/pre-commit"
      }
    },
    "pre-git": {
      "commit-msg": "simple",
      "pre-commit": [
        "npm run pretest",
        "npm run deps",
        "npm run ban",
        "git add ."
      ],
      "pre-push": [
        "npm test",
        "npm run secure",
        "npm run license",
        "npm run ban -- --all",
        "npm run size"
      ],
      "post-commit": [],
      "post-merge": []
    }
  },
  "engines": {
    "node": ">=6"
  },
  "files": [
    "src/*.js",
    "!src/*-spec.js"
  ],
  "bin": {
    "stop-build": "src/index.js"
  },
  "homepage": "https://github.com/bahmutov/stop-build#readme",
  "keywords": [
    "build",
    "ci",
    "exit",
    "git",
    "utility"
  ],

  "license": "MIT",
  "main": "src/",
  "publishConfig": {
    "registry": "http://registry.npmjs.org/"
  },
  "repository": {
    "type": "git",
    "url": "https://github.com/bahmutov/stop-build.git"
  },
  "scripts": {
    "ban": "ban",
    "deps": "deps-ok",
    "issues": "git-issues",
    "license": "license-checker --production --onlyunknown --csv",
    "pretty": "prettier-standard 'src/*.js'",
    "prelint": "npm run pretty",
    "lint": "standard --verbose --fix src/*.js",
    "pretest": "npm run lint",
    "secure": "nsp check",
    "size": "t=\"$(npm pack .)\"; wc -c \"${t}\"; tar tvf \"${t}\"; rm \"${t}\";",
    "test": "npm run unit",
    "unit": "mocha src/*-spec.js",
    "semantic-release": "semantic-release pre && npm publish && semantic-release post"
  },
  "devDependencies": {
    "ban-sensitive-files": "1.9.0",
    "deps-ok": "1.2.0",
    "git-issues": "1.3.1",
    "license-checker": "11.0.0",
    "mocha": "3.4.2",
    "nsp": "2.6.3",
    "pre-git": "3.15.0",
    "prettier-standard": "5.1.0",
    "semantic-release": "^6.3.6",
    "standard": "10.0.2"
  },
  "dependencies": {
    "ggit": "1.15.1",
    "pluralize": "5.0.0"
  }
}

$ yo node-bahmutov
{
  "name": "stop-build",
  "version": "0.0.0-development",
  "description": "Exits with non-zero code if there are modified Git files",
  "author": "Gleb Bahmutov <gleb.bahmutov@gmail.com>",
  "bugs": "https://github.com/bahmutov/stop-build/issues",
  "config": {
    "next-update": {
      "commands": {
        "pre-git": "./.git/hooks/pre-commit"
      }
    },
    "pre-git": {
      "commit-msg": "simple",
      "pre-commit": [
        "npm run pretest",
        "npm run deps",
        "npm run ban",
        "git add ."
      ],
      "pre-push": [
        "npm test",
        "npm run secure",
        "npm run license",
        "npm run ban -- --all",
        "npm run size"
      ],
      "post-commit": [],
      "post-merge": []
    }
  },
  "engines": {
    "node": ">=6"
  },
  "files": [
    "src/*.js",
    "!src/*-spec.js"
  ],
  "bin": {
    "stop-build": "src/index.js"
  },
  "homepage": "https://github.com/bahmutov/stop-build#readme",
  "keywords": [
    "build",
    "ci",
    "exit",
    "git",
    "utility"
  ],

  "license": "MIT",
  "main": "src/",
  "publishConfig": {
    "registry": "http://registry.npmjs.org/"
  },
  "repository": {
    "type": "git",
    "url": "https://github.com/bahmutov/stop-build.git"
  },
  "scripts": {
    "ban": "ban",
    "deps": "deps-ok",
    "issues": "git-issues",
    "license": "license-checker --production --onlyunknown --csv",
    "pretty": "prettier-standard 'src/*.js'",
    "prelint": "npm run pretty",
    "lint": "standard --verbose --fix src/*.js",
    "pretest": "npm run lint",
    "secure": "nsp check",
    "size": "t=\"$(npm pack .)\"; wc -c \"${t}\"; tar tvf \"${t}\"; rm \"${t}\";",
    "test": "npm run unit",
    "unit": "mocha src/*-spec.js",
    "semantic-release": "semantic-release pre && npm publish && semantic-release post"
  },
  "devDependencies": {
    "ban-sensitive-files": "1.9.0",
    "deps-ok": "1.2.0",
    "git-issues": "1.3.1",
    "license-checker": "11.0.0",
    "mocha": "3.4.2",
    "nsp": "2.6.3",
    "pre-git": "3.15.0",
    "prettier-standard": "5.1.0",
    "semantic-release": "^6.3.6",
    "standard": "10.0.2"
  },
  "dependencies": {
    "ggit": "1.15.1",
    "pluralize": "5.0.0"
  }
}

Offline server-side rendering

var express = require('express')
var app = express()
 
app.get('/', function (req, res) {
  res.send('Hello World')
})
 
app.listen(3000)

http://expressjs.com/en/resources/frameworks.html

The page HTML arrives ready to be rendered by the browser

Server-side rendering is good

If the server goes down in the forest ...

<html manifest="example.appcache">
  ...
</html>

Application Cache

CACHE MANIFEST
# v1 2011-08-14
index.html
style.css
image1.png
# Use from network if available
NETWORK:
network.html
# Fallback content
FALLBACK:
/ fallback.html

declarative list

Application Cache

Turns out declaring caching strategy is hard.

https://alistapart.com/article/application-cache-is-a-douchebag

ServiceWorker

browser

Web Workers

Server

browser

No changes to the page 😊

Load ServiceWorker

SmashingMagazine: Making A Service Worker: A Case Study

navigator.serviceWorker.register(
    'app/my-service-worker.js')

Inside ServiceWorker

self.addEventListener('install', ...)
self.addEventListener('activate', ...)
self.addEventListener('message', ...)
self.addEventListener('push', ...)

ServiceWorker API docs

Cache API docs

self.addEventListener('install', e => {
  const urls = ['/', 'app.css', 'app.js']
  e.waitUntil(
    caches.open('my-app')
      .then(cache => 
        cache.addAll(urls))
  )
})

Cache resources on SW install

Fetch event

browser

ServiceWorker

Server

Server

browser

ServiceWorker

Request

Response

express.js

http.ClientRequest

http.ServerResponse

https://nodejs.org/api/http.html

Fetch event

browser

ServiceWorker

Server

express.js

Server

browser

ServiceWorker

express.js

https://github.com/bahmutov/express-service

https://express-service.herokuapp.com/

Express-service

Demo at: https://express-service.gleb-demos.com

The library: github.com/bahmutov/express-service

Blog post with examples: Run Express server in your browser

Express-service

There is no client-side* JavaScript :)

*after first ServiceWorker registration

Express-service

bonus

$ npm i -g nativefier
$ nativefier https://express-service.gleb-demos.com/

github.com/jiahaog/nativefier

JavaScript is scripting language ⚠️

Use static linters to catch simple mistakes

Start "index.js" file

• Sublime Text
• Visual Studio Code
• vim
• WebStorm IDE

Good auto-formatting

Prettier

Prettier is an opinionated code formatter

$ npm home prettier
$ npm home standard

$ npm home prettier
$ npm home standard

$ npm install --save-dev \
  prettier-standard standard

+ standard@10.0.3
+ prettier-standard@6.0.0

{
  "scripts": {
    "prelint": "prettier-standard '*.js'",
    "lint": "standard --fix *.js",
    "pretest": "npm run lint",
    "test": "exit 1"
  }
}

package.json

// index.js
const add = (a, b) => a + b
const sub = (a, b) => {
  return a + b
}
module.exports.add = ad
module.exports.sub = sub

> standard --fix *.js

  my-app/index.js:1:7: 
   'add' is assigned a value but never used.
  my-app/index.js:5:22: 
   'ad' is not defined.

Bonus: NPX

Node v8.x.x includes NPM v5.x.x and NPX

A helper tool for executing binaries from packages

$ node_modules/.bin/standard *.js
       or
$ $(npm bin)/standard *.js

Unit testing JavaScript

Tape, QUnit, Mocha, Ava, Jest

https://glebbahmutov.com/blog/picking-javascript-testing-framework/

$ npm install --save-dev jest
$ npx jest

https://facebook.github.io/jest/

$ npx jest
 PASS  ./test.js
  add
    ✓ adds numbers (4ms)

Test Suites: 1 passed, 1 total
Tests:       1 passed, 1 total
Snapshots:   0 total
Time:        0.763s, estimated 1s
Ran all test suites.

it('adds numbers', () => {
  expect(add(1, 2)).toMatchSnapshot()
  expect(add(100, -50)).toMatchSnapshot()
})

$ cat __snapshots__/test.js.snap 
// Jest Snapshot v1, https://goo.gl/fbAQLP

exports[`add adds numbers 1`] = `3`;

exports[`add adds numbers 2`] = `50`;

Saved snapshot files

it('adds numbers', () => {
  expect(add(1, 20)).toMatchSnapshot()
  expect(add(100, -50)).toMatchSnapshot()
})

Loading JS Modules

Writing a single JavaScript file is a bad idea, but how should one JS file load another JS file?

CommonJS modules

// add.js
function add (a, b) {
  return a + b
}
module.exports = add

Node implements CommonJS standard

CommonJS modules

// index.js
const add = require('./add')
add(2, 3) // 5

Node loads a file synchronously

Two huge problems

CommonJS modules

• Browser cannot load files synchronously

Solution: bundling

  add.js
  sub.js
  index.js

Browserfiy, webpack

bundle.js

Second problem

CommonJS modules

• JS engine cannot tell what a module exports until it runs module's code

Huge JS bundles because have to include everything, even if code is unused

ES6 Modules

http://es6-features.org/#ValueExportImport

// add.js
export function add (a, b) {
  return a + b
}

$ node add.js 
./add.js:2
export function add (a, b) {
^^^^^^
SyntaxError: Unexpected token export

• Node 8 does not implement ES6 modules

• Browser support is patchy

$ npm i -S @std/esm

{
  "@std/esm": {
    "esm": "js"
  },
  "scripts": {
    "start": "node -r @std/esm index.js"
  }
}

add to package.json

install dependency

ES6 Modules in Node Today

github.com/standard-things/esm

// index.js
import {add} from './add'
import {sub} from './sub'
console.log(add(2, 3))

github.com/standard-things/esm

Building browser bundle

$ npm i -D rollup

{
  "scripts": {
    "build": "rollup index.js -o bundle.js --f iife"
  }
}

add to package.json

install dependency

$ npm run build

build the bundle

https://rollupjs.org

Tree-shaking

// index.js
import {add} from './add'
import {sub} from './sub'
console.log(add(2, 3))

https://rollupjs.org

The bundle is minimal

$ cat bundle.js

https://rollupjs.org

There is so much more

IoT, robots, databases,

WebSockets, Audio and Video, P2P, WebAssembly, VR, compiled to JS languages

JavaScript language is running the modern web

The tools and libraries are incredibly diverse and can satisfy anyone's needs

There is a good process for introducing new language features every year