jomendez

I mean, javascript could be weird for developers that are just starting with the language and mostly for developers that comes from other languages like C++ or C# for example.

There are certain areas of the language that cam blow your mind 🤯🤯
In this article we are going to see 5 examples, and keep it simple withing the ~2 min reading time.

Numeric separators

Lets take for example the following code:

const number1 = 2_0_0_0;
const number2 = 6_0_0_0;

console.log(number1 + number2);

What you think the result is going to be?

You can copy and paste the code on a browser developer console or you can play with it yourself on codepen.

The result is 8000, but why?

The thing is that the underscore (_) is a numeric separator for numeric literal. It is used to group digits to make long numbers more readable, for example:

1234567

1_234_567 <-- Therefore, it is more readable with the separator.

More info in this article.

Some weird types.

Another example is when you run the code typeof null

typeof null;
// result object

which incorrectly suggests that null is an object (it isn't, it's a primitive value).

well in this case it is not just a weird thing, it is a bug in the language that can't be corrected because it will brake other parts of the code.

There is a more deep explanation in this article.

Meanwhile...

 typeof NaN;
 // result number.

Is it weird that NaN — “not a number” is actually a number or is just me? On the other hand, NaN is not equal to itself.

console.log(NaN === NaN);
//evaluates false.

Functions.

In javascript a function can self-invoke it self IIFE (Immediately Invoked Function Expression) , so you can do declaration and execution on the same statement.

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

As far as I know this only exist in javascript. It is quite useful, can be used to avoid variable hoisting from within blocks, protect against polluting the global environment and simultaneously allow public access to methods while retaining privacy for variables defined within the function.

You can learn more on this article

Reset an array

And last but not least, the most weird way of resetting an array, you can set the length property to cero: arr.length = 0;.

const arr = [1,2,3,4,5,6];
console.log(arr);
// displays [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

arr.length = 0;
console.log(arr);
// displays []

I hope you like it, and if you know any other weird thing specific of the javascript language please feel free to share it with us. 😉