Avoid These 7 Common Mistakes In JavaScript Development

Nawaz Dhandala
CloudBoost
Published in
4 min readAug 13, 2020

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As JavaScript continues to be essential to all modern web applications, it has spawned a wide array of powerful JavaScript-based libraries and frameworks for single page application (SPA) development, graphics, and animation.

Although, at first glance, JavaScript may seem easy, in truth, building a basic functioning JavaScript into a web page can be challenging, whether you’re an experienced software developer or a novice.

But don’t panic! We’re here to show you the seven common mistakes to avoid when developing JavaScript.

1. Neglecting The Use Of The + Symbol

“JavaScript is well-known for its usage of the plus (+) symbol,” says Mason Gowrie, a tech writer at Boom essays and Paper fellows. “That symbol has two distinct purposes: concatenating strings and adding variables.”

However, when the developer combines both string and integer values as input for a function, it fails to identify and parse the correct value.

“You can avoid this mistake by converting string values into integer through the parseInt() function when a function inputs both strings and numbers,” adds Gowrie.

2. Incorrect Use Of = And == Operators

The comparison operator (==) and assignment operator (=) are used interchangeably in JavaScript. A programmer must remember that (=) is used while assigning values to a variable, while (==) is used to compare value of a variable conditionally. And, rather than leave these operators to chance until testing, avoid this mistake by using (==) instead of (=) while writing [if] statements.

3. Manipulating DOM Inefficiently

In JavaScript, it’s relatively easy to manipulate the DOM (i.e., add, modify, and remove elements). However, DOM does nothing to promote these actions efficiently, especially when adding a series of DOM Elements one at a time, which can be an expensive operation. Adding multiple DOM elements in code is both inefficient and inadequate.

Instead, use document fragments to create and modify, when adding multiple DOM elements. Not only does this improve both efficiency and performance, but also saves time and money.

4. Using Commas, Not Semicolons

JavaScript code is readable by using semicolons. However, novice developers often believe that semicolons only take up memory space…

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