Failing fast - Robust Client-Side JavaScript

Every computer program may have logic bugs: A case is not considered, the state is changed incorrectly, data is transformed wrongly, input is not handled. These bugs can have several consequences in JavaScript:

In the best case the script fails with an exception. You may wonder, why is that the best case? Because an exception is visible and easy to report. The line of code that threw an exception is likely not the root cause, but the cause is somewhere in the call stack. An exception is a good starting point for debugging.

In the worst case the application continues to run despite the error, but some parts of the interface are broken. Sometimes the user gets stuck. Sometimes data gets lost or corrupted permanently.

JavaScript code should fail fast (PDF) to make errors visible. Failing early with an exception, even with a user-facing error, is better than failing silently with undefined, puzzling behavior.

Unfortunately, JavaScript does not follow the principle of failing fast. JavaScript is a weakly typed language that goes great lengths to not fail with an error.

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The key to failing fast is to make your assumptions explicit with assertions.

Quoted content by Mathias Schäfer is licensed under CC BY-SA. See the other snippets from Robust Client-Side JavaScript.