Safer JavaScript with the Maybe Type

JavaScript’s dynamic typing makes it incredibly flexible. That flexibility can lead to trouble though. When values have the potential to change types or to end up as

or

, that can lead to runtime errors in our code or bizarre bugs that take forever to track down because of type coercion. To battle this, we end up with code that is littered will conditionals for

or

values and type checks, making the core logic harder to read and refactor later.

The

Maybe

encapsulates the type checking and guards against missing values for us. With

Maybe

in our toolbelt, we can keep our functions free of all the guardrails, outsource that work to the

Maybe

and keep our business logic free of all the clutter.

Course Content

Course Introduction: Safer JavaScript with the Maybe type

Understand the Maybe Data Type

Create a Maybe with a `safe` Utility Function

Unwrap Values from a Maybe

Safely Access Object Properties with `prop`

Safely Access Nested Object Properties with `propPath`

Flatten Nested Maybes with `chain`

Recover from a Nothing with the `alt` method

Recover from a Nothing with the `coalesce` Method

Compose Functions for Reusability with the Maybe Type

Apply a function in a Maybe context to Maybe inputs

Make your own functions safer by lifting them into a Maybe context