Things to look for while picking a library

roix — Wed, 18 Aug 2021 15:56:39 +0000

Many times we come across the scenario where we need to pick a library to implement a feature. We usually have our go-to library in our mind in most of these cases.

But in some cases, we will have to do some research on the available libraries and pick one of the available ones.

Here are some things (in no particular order) you should look for while picking a library.

1. Popularity

The more popular a library is, the more people would be using it. That means there is a large user community using the library every day and that comes with the following benefits:

Fewer bugs as most would be already reported by the users and fixed.
More questions and answers on Stackoverflow (and more search results on Google).
Better documentation.
Less chance that the library has some serious performance issues or missing any important features.

I use the following metrics to decide how popular a library is:

Github stars - I look for libraries having more than 1.5k stars.
npm weekly downloads (for javascript libraries) - I look for libraries with 6 figure weekly npm downloads on npm.

2. Last Release / Last Commit

Another thing to consider is how recently a new release was made for the library.

If the repository is publicly available then you should also check when was the last commit made to that repository and how often commits are being made in that repository.

A library may be popular, but if it is not maintained anymore then it may become outdated or have bugs that will never be fixed.

More frequent releases or commits means that the contributors/maintainers of the library are actively working on pushing important security/bug fixes or new features.

It also means that if you find a serious bug or a very useful feature missing, you can request the developers to fix or implement them or you can directly contribute to the code if the library is open source.

3. Library Size

Another thing to look for is the size of the library.

More often than not, as a library gets popular, more and more features get added to it. This increases the size of the library.

If you just want a very small subset of the features the library provides, then you can pick a library that has all the features you need and has a smaller footprint.

2 Tips to Code Faster

roix — Wed, 21 Jul 2021 13:57:40 +0000

1. Increase your typing speed

The faster you can type, the faster you can put your thoughts into code. The more time you save typing, the more time you can spend on thinking and improving your code.

Head over to https://www.typingtest.com/ and check how fast you can type.

Are you satisfied with your score? Do you want to improve your score?

Don't worry, you can easily improve your typing speed by following a simple, well-documented but often not known technique.

It's pretty simple. You got to follow these rules.

You position your fingers on these keys (a,s,d,f)()(j,k,l,;). The row these keys (except ) are at is called the home row.
You use the respective finger (as indicated by the color code) and only that finger to type the character.
Once you type your character, you reposition your fingers back to the home row.

Now, when you start, this will do the opposite of what you want. It will decrease your typing speed. But that's part of unlearning what you are used to doing.

You might get frustrated and tempted to go back to the old way of typing. But just trust me and keep at it. It may take a month or so, but eventually, you will be typing way faster than what you are capable of doing right now.

You also won't need to look at the keyboard anymore once you get used to this.

2. Avoid the mouse

What's faster?
[alt + tab] or using the mouse to switch to the previous window?
[alt + f4] or clicking on the x button?
[ctrl + t] or clicking on the new tab button?

Sure using the mouse is simple, intuitive, and user-friendly, but it is damn slow.

Now if you are convinced that using the mouse is slower than using the keyboard, then as yourself this question.

How much time you are wasting while coding by using the mouse?

Just like the other things I mentioned above, all those scrolling, clicking, selecting, etc. you do with the mouse while coding takes up a lot of time and slows you down.

That's why it is better to use an editor which allows you to do all the things which typically require a mouse without a mouse!

Vim is one such editor. Emacs is another. There are probably more, but these are the two well-known ones.

I have been a vim user for a long time, so I recommend using vim while coding.

Now similar to getting used to the new typing technique, you will feel it is incredibly counterintuitive and hard to use vim at first. But don't give up, just keep at it, and using vim will become second nature to you.

You may have seen vim on the cli only. Although vim (in its truest form) only works on the cli, there are usually plugins in editors which allow you to enable vim like typing in your IDE. I use vim plugin with vscode.

Conclusion

I know these techniques work because I have used them myself and I see a big difference in the speed at which I code.

But the key to success using these techniques is practice and persistence. Getting used to these takes time and patience, but it is all worth it in the end.

DEV Community: roix