Commonly accepted best practices around code organization in JavaScript

Asked 2008-10-29T15:19:32.293

571

As JavaScript frameworks like jQuery make client side web applications richer and more functional, I've started to notice one problem...

How in the world do you keep this organized?

Put all your handlers in one spot and write functions for all the events?
Create function/classes to wrap all your functionality?
Write like crazy and just hope it works out for the best?
Give up and get a new career?

I mention jQuery, but it's really any JavaScript code in general. I'm finding that as lines upon lines begin to pile up, it gets harder to manage the script files or find what you are looking for. Quite possibly the biggest propblems I've found is there are so many ways to do the same thing, it's hard to know which one is the current commonly accepted best practice.

Are there any general recommendations on the best way to keep your .js files as nice and neat as the rest of your application? Or is this just a matter of IDE? Is there a better option out there?

EDIT

This question was intended to be more about code organization and not file organization. There has been some really good examples of merging files or splitting content around.

My question is: what is the current commonly accepted best practice way to organize your actual code? What is your way, or even a recommended way to interact with page elements and create reuseable code that doesn't conflict with each other?

Some people have listed namespaces which is a good idea. What are some other ways, more specifically dealing with elements on the page and keeping the code organized and neat?

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2 Answers

I think this ties into, perhaps, DDD (Domain-Driven Design). The application I'm working on, although lacking a formal API, does give hints of such by way of the server-side code (class/file names, etc). Armed with that, I created a top-level object as a container for the entire problem domain; then, I added namespaces in where needed:

var App;
(function()
{
    App = new Domain( 'test' );

    function Domain( id )
    {
        this.id = id;
        this.echo = function echo( s )
        {
            alert( s );
        }
        return this;
    }
})();

// separate file
(function(Domain)
{
    Domain.Console = new Console();

    function Console()
    {
        this.Log = function Log( s )
        {
            console.log( s );
        }
        return this;
    }
})(App);

// implementation
App.Console.Log('foo');

answered 2009-03-30T08:39:32.080

Lazy Load the code you need on demand. Google does something like this with their google.loader

answered 2008-12-22T22:43:57.913

Commonly accepted best practices around code organization in JavaScript

2 Answers

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