JS Clean Code tip: Don't use tuples for returned objects

I am not going to talk about the Record & Tuple Proposal, but about this bad habit:

function createSomething() {
  const thing1 = { 
    aProperty: 'indeed'
  };

  function thing2() { /* ... */ }

  return [thing1, thing2];
}

There is absolutely everything wrong with this example. Honestly I was kinda surprised to see it in actual production code.

The problem is losing naming

So let's see some examples of using the thing above:

// Having a typo won't cause any errors
// but you won't find the usages.
const [thang, thing2] = createSomething();

// This is not just valid, but super misleading!
// You accidentally changed the order and you had no errors!
const [thing2, thing1] = createSomething();

We are losing the meaningful names still intact inside createSomething with nothing in return. (React team uses this actually to name your hooks in any way you want - but they also try to enforce naming through linter rules).

How to fix it

Simply return an object:

return { thing1, thing2 };

And this is how you use it:

// will cause error
const { thang, thing2 } = createSomething();

// order does not matter, no penalty 
// if you misremember the order
const { thing2, thing1 } = createSomething();

💪 🦾 💪 🦾 💪 🦾 💪 🦾