Hello, everyone 👋. I am a newcomer when it comes to JavaScript. I come from an OOP background (C# and Java). I’ve recently learned that ES6 has a class keyword that preforms similarly (but not exactly) to common OOP languages. Normally I would be inclined to use this feature in my projects; however, it came to my attention that the usage of class in JavaScript seems to be heavily discussed (mostly in a negative light). My questions to this community are:

  • Should it be used often, sparingly, or be outright avoided?
  • What are its advantages and disadvantages?
  • Are there specific cases where the usage of class excels?

Please share your thoughts.

  • @[email protected]
    1•1 year ago

    My opinion is you should use it when it’s useful, but not when it’s unnecessary. Their main use case is when you need to couple the functionality of functions to a shared state, and it’s particularly useful when you have multiple interdependent functions that need to be tied to multiple codependent states.

    I find it relatively rare when I really need to use a class. Between first class functions and closures and modules and other features, I find JavaScript has a lot of tools to avoid needing classes. Classes add complexity so I only use them when the complexity they add is less than the complexity of the task they’re needed for.