Hello and welcome! How are you doing?

Today I am writing about some concepts of modern JavaScript that are very useful, and often recommended to learn before going into React.

Note that post is about me trying to explain these concepts to myself! I want to make sure I understand them and have these notes when I needed, so I decided to share it here as well. Also, I first posted it on my personal blog over a year ago, so here you will find an updated version.

There is much more to these concepts, but my notes will are basic explanations, great if you need to review them.

The concepts are:

• Arrow functions,
• Template literals,
• Var, Let and Const,
• Ternary (conditional) operator,
• Shorthand object assignment and
• Spread operator.

Arrow Functions:

When you use a normal function, the keyword this is set to that function's scope. In an arrow function this is set to the parent scope.
Also, Arrow Functions are functions wrote in a shorter form.
They have this name because they use an arrow sign => instead of the word function.

//regular function
function hello() {
  console.log('Hello');
}

//arrow function
const hello = () => {console.log('Hello')}

Template Literals:

I have been using those for a while and had no idea what they were named. It is a "new" way of creating a string. I am not quite sure how to explain it, so I will show:

const name = 'Ana';
const age = 32;
//regular string
console.log(name + " is " + age + " years "+ "old");

//template literal
console.log(`${name} is ${age} years old`);

The result is the same, but writing as template literal makes things easier. We don't have to worry about spaces and the code looks neat.

Var, Let and Const:

Always use const unless you are certain you will need to reassign a value, them use let.

In short, var is dead x.x

Ternary (or conditional) Operators:

Those are pretty cool, as most of the other concepts here. It is the only operator that uses 3 operands and it is often used to replace if/them. Here is how:

//Using if
const todayIsFriday = false;
if(todayIsFriday){
  console.log('It is Fri-yay')
} else{
  console.log('Not quite there yet')
}

// using Ternary Operator
cont todayIsMonday = true;
console.log(todayIsMonday ? 'Yey, another week' : 'Yey, it is not Monday')

Shorthand Object Assignment:

If you want to define an object whose keys have the same name as the variables passed as properties, you can use the shorthand and simply pass the key name:

//regular
const abc = {
  a:a,
  b:b,
  c:c,
};

//shorthand
const efg = { e, f, g};

Spread Operator:

Last but not least, the Spread operator... Another one that is a bit tricky to explain. Basically, it takes an array or object and expands it. The Spread Operator syntax looks like this:

const obj1 = {a: 'a', b: 'b'};
const obj2 = {...obj1, c: 'c'};
console.log(obj2);

//The console will log: Object {  a: "a",  b: "b",  c: "c"}

Final Notes:

I hope my notes can help someone learning JavaScript.
Also, you can find those pieces of code on my Codepen if you would like to try practicing yourself!

Want to learn to code with me?

Join me on my Live Coding Streams on Twitch!

Xoxo,

Pachi C.