This month I have been focusing on lodash, mostly in terms of editing my older content on the subject, but also writing a few new posts where and when I think doing so is needed. With that said I have not wrote a post centered around the subject of collections, and so called collection methods and how they compare to say arrays methods in lodash. So in todays post the focal point will be collections, the various methods in lodash that work with collections, and also how to work with collections in general outside of lodash when it comes to working with javaScript by itself.

When it comes to arrays in javaScript and array can be though of as a kind of collection, this is because an array is zero or more elements and each element is often of a given type. When it comes to regular javaScript arrays any element can be any given type, but there are also typed arrays where all elements are a single type. However anyway each element in the array typically has some kind of shared significance that is relevant to an over all problem, and this array needs to be acted on with various kinds of methods that preform actions on this array such a filtering. When it comes to the structure of javaScript arrays, an array is a kind of object in javaScript, each key is numbered rather than named, and there is a length property of the array that is the current capacity of the array. There is then creating an object that is structured this way using for example the Object literal syntax, as such it is an object that is just like an array in terms of the own properties of the object, but it is not an instance of the array class, thus does not have array prototype methods at the ready to work with. There is then creating another kind of object that is also just like this kind of object in terms of the values for each key, but the keys are named rather than numbered, and there is no length property. These kinds of objects may differ from an array a little, but they can still be thought of as a kind of collection.

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Over the last few days I was working on yet another one of my javaScript examples this time it is yet another Digital Art Projects based off of revision 5 of my first Object Pool Reduction digital art example that I started late last year. This time around I wanted to make a quick project that was just a bunch of display objects moving around the canvas, each of which also contains a collection of points that form a star. However this is not just any star, but a kind of unsteady star that has more than one collection of points attached to it. One collection of points is a bunch of home points that are the pure position locations for each point in the star, then other collections of points have to do with old, target, and current positions. So then the points move from the home positions to random positions that are a certain random radius and angle from each home position. So then simply put they end up being collections of points that look like stars but the points will move around to these random locations within a range of each home point.

The main goal of this project was not just to create yet another digital art project, but also to continue to practice and refine the basic process that I started with in my first digital art javaScript example project. That is to come up with what the Core idea of a project is first, finish that, then move on to a few additional features. Also when it comes to additional features set a limit as to how many of them there will be, and try to focus on what I really want or need to add to the project. Then onces the few features are done, sop adding features and focus on code readability and fixing bugs. This kind of process combined with sticking to simple, artful projects will then result in me actually finishing a project, and then I will be free to move on to the next idea. With that said I would say that the main goal of this project was a success, now it is just doing the same of the next project, and the project after that. Keeping the ides simple and in the scope of something that I can complete in a few days, or at most a month if it is something that is a little involves.

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When working with a chain of methods in lodash there might end up being one or more instances in which I will want to just tap off of the chain at some point, mutate a collection, and then continue on with the chain of methods. The main method of interest with this would be the lodash tap method that can be called off of a chain at any moment to just do something that involves mutating the collection in place. This tap method works by using a value as the first argument and calling an interceptor function as the second argument, the return value of the tap method is then also the given value as well.

There are some other lodash methods that are worth mentioning such as the lodah flow method that might be a better alternative to using the lodash chain method to begin with. Also there is maybe a few things to write about when it comes to doing similar things with javaScript by itself also.

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I have got into the habit of always starting off a new year with a single post for a collection of posts that have to do with the topic of writing a blog rather than javaScript, or a given framework, or the various tech related topics that I typically write about on this website. Not that I think that this is the sort of thing that should happen only once a year, in fact I am always thinking in terms of what it is that I can and should do differently, and not just with this blog, but where I should be placing my time and energy in general.

When I look back at some of my older posts for the various years in which I have write this kind of post at the star of a new year, I have to admit that often I do not follow threw with much of what I outline in such a post. So maybe this time I will write about what the plan is currently, rather than what it is the I aim to do. The fact of the mater is that much might change this coming year when it comes to where it is that I choose to focus on moving forward with things. This might mean less writing, but more work on actual projects. It might also mean more writing actually, but in the form of improving the quality of older content that I have all ready wrote in terms of editing existing content, rather than writing new content.

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For the last day of the year I wanted to do something fun, so I made yet another quick javaScript example type post, this time it is a kind of digital art project that has to do with an object pool that will reduce in terms of the active count of objects. When it comes to my canvas examples collection of posts I have put together a canvas example that makes use of an object pool module for that example that I will then be using in this javaScript example.

I am thinking that this might just be the first of at least a few javaScript examples where the goal is to just do something artful with canvas elements, and also try to go in some new directions with programing in general while I am in the process of doing so. Often people think in terms of what they can do that is new, or different each time a new year comes around, and there are a whole lot of things that I would like to do that are new with javaScript, as well as with this website for sure. With that said there is treating this javaScript example differently this time around by setting some intentions, and making sure to follow threw with them. For example there is not just getting a crude idea up and working and moving on, but refining and improving the over all structure of the idea in terms of the quality of the source code which is one thing I would like to do with this javaScript example.

The general idea of this example came to me when I was editing my post on the javaScript array reduce method which is of course one of the many methods in the array prototype of native javaScript. What I had in mind was just a collection of display objects that move around on the canvas, and when one or more of them overlap with one all the display objects that overlap will combine into one parent display object. So then eventual all the display objects will end up, well reducing into a single display object. After that there is having some additional code that involves having the display objects split apart again. That is it in terms of the genera idea, and as of this writing I have that general idea up and running, but I would like to continue working on this project at least a little way beyond just having the general idea working.

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