CODEWITHSUNDEEP
node.jsunderscore.js
dylanized
dylanized

Reputation: 3855

Should Node.js module developers use Underscore.js?

I'm working on my 1st Node.js module, and having to do common utility stuff like check types, looping etc.

The native JS for some of this stuff is pretty ugly. Underscore.js makes it more readable and adds a lot of new features too. But if I don't need the new stuff, should I use Underscore or just do it the hard way?

Thanks!

Upvotes: 3

Views: 1501

Answers (5)

Erik Reppen
Erik Reppen

Reputation: 4625

Underscore does the right thing, which is check for all the native es5 methods first, meaning you won't have much in the way of performance loss on native methods getting replaced with slower non-native versions that basically do the same thing (code here):

var
    nativeForEach      = ArrayProto.forEach,
    nativeMap          = ArrayProto.map,
    nativeReduce       = ArrayProto.reduce,
    nativeReduceRight  = ArrayProto.reduceRight,
    nativeFilter       = ArrayProto.filter,
    nativeEvery        = ArrayProto.every,
    nativeSome         = ArrayProto.some,
    nativeIndexOf      = ArrayProto.indexOf,
    nativeLastIndexOf  = ArrayProto.lastIndexOf,
    nativeIsArray      = Array.isArray,
    nativeKeys         = Object.keys,
    nativeBind         = FuncProto.bind;

Note: prototypes assigned to "Proto" vars earlier.

That said, I'm pretty sure V8 has most if not all of these. Being of client-side dev origins I'd be delighted simply to use the raw naked thing without having to think about how or what library is best for dragging IE kicking and screaming out of the stone age this time, providing the built-in methods aren't as ugly as the DOM API and I would say these aren't.

If underscore does more for you than the above then by all means use it. If it doesn't, I'd consider it a waste of space. All it really does on the browser is give you fallback methods for the older browsers which aren't a going concern in Node. It's light though. I wouldn't object either way if you were on my team and didn't want to write your own versions of something uniquely handled by underscore but would prefer the direct native method names/args, etc. in my own code on the principle of disliking dependencies anywhere I don't need them.

Upvotes: 2

esp
esp

Reputation: 7687

I use underscore in modules that are shared with the browser, not to depend on ES5. Also Underscore has quite a few very useful methods that are not available in ES5, so it would make sense to read their manual page.

Upvotes: 0

Gabriel Llamas
Gabriel Llamas

Reputation: 18427

I've never used underscore nor async on real projects. Once you know how to code good javascript it's not necessary to use any helper library. For example, functions that should execute in serie and are asynchronous it's pretty easy to do with a simple "recursive while loop", you don't need to load any library.

But at the end this is a personal preference. Use external libraries if you feel comfortable with them.

Advice: Don't look at the github starts or npm installations to decide which module to use. Being popular doesn't mean being good. I've tried a lot of popular modules and about a 40% of them are just bad/bugged/not really useful. There are a lot of modules that are not popular that are really good. Being popular helps to take a decision but you should not install and use a module just because it's popular.

Upvotes: 2

saintedlama
saintedlama

Reputation: 6898

In node.is you can rely on having some ES5 stuff, array iteration functions and utility functions like isArray. In my node modules I never used underscore and had, due to array iteration functions like map, forEach never the need to use underscore or lodash.

I would not avoid a underscore dependency in case I'd really need it. The node.js platform relies on small modules depending on a couple of small modules itself. So why not depend on underscore.

Upvotes: 5

BFree
BFree

Reputation: 103740

I see no reason to avoid using a module that makes your life easier. And, it just so happens, that underscore.js is the most depended upon package in the npm registry (as of the time of this answer, according to https://npmjs.org/). So yea, no reason to avoid it.

Upvotes: 4

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