Side effects in web development are said to occur by any consequences that happened unexpectedly from any actions done or data handled in that web application. As a result of these side effects, websites may have either beneficial or negative impacts. So it is crucial to understand that handling side effects has to be maintained well with utmost care in order to create a strong website and web applications.
To make it clear, observe the side effects occurred by embedding a video player in the website. With this element, the video gets automatically played while it is visible and is paused when it is no longer visible. That being said, the side effect here is getting involved with the browser’s IntersectionObserver API as it interacts with DOM triggering the visibility of elements. Handling these side effects helps in ensuring smooth performance and user experience.
Here are some types side effects commonly happens in web development.
- Unintended Data ModificationThis common type of side effect arises when a developer accidentally changes data in a database or on a server through an activity within a web application, probably leading to data corruption, security issues . This might undermine the user experiences, integrity of the web application if poorly managed.
- Performance IssuesIn a web development performance issue can be affected by certain side effects like database queries being inefficient or operations consuming too many resources leading to slow page loading times, responses getting delayed to users and creating frustration among users and reducing engagements. These types of issues arise due to when side effects are not managed properly. These performance side effects can be avoided by adding best practices like enhancing API calls, and reducing needless state updates. Page loading can be slower and takes more time to load when heavy libraries are added to the website. Large image files in a website also eventually affect the performance of the website and its loading.
- Data LossData loss is a side effect in web development occurring if there are any errors in coding, system failures, or any actions from the side of the user, that results in deletion or losing important users thereby affecting the website reputation. Eventually the time taken to recover the lost data like any articles or other website contents and user data leading to interrupting user experience, losing customers and revenue.
- Impact on code qualityIn web development side effects are inherent. If it is not managed properly it may affect the quality of the codebase. That can lead to complexity, try to make debugging more complicated, increase day by day risk of bugs, complication in testing process and decrease the maintainability and performance of web applications and websites. Suppose adding heavy libraries to websites may affect the code quality as maintaining the code becomes difficult.
- Coding helps you in problem-solving.
- Memory leaks as a result of poor human resource management Memory leak in web development means our web application will provide a memory to store and reserve data , but it fails to deliver that stored memory when it’s not required. As a result of this the memory remains in it and stops this from applying to other uses. In short this can happen when things or resources are allocated and never eliminated . In web development memory leak may slow down your performance and applications. If it is not managed properly it will collapse your entire system too.
KEY POINTS THAT CAUSE MEMORY LEAKS
Event listener : Memory leaks occur when we forget to remove event listeners that are attached to the DOM part that is not needed; this will cause memory leaks.
Detached Dom node : In web development memory leaks occur if you removed a Dom element from the page but it may remain in the memory because you don’t detach it properly.
Global variables and closures : When global variables and closures are not maintained properly ,they will retain huge amounts of data that will prevent garbage collection from being impossible.
By implementing suitable approaches, these side effects can be avoided. Security issues can be cleared by implementing input validations and properly handling the error and controlling unexpected behavior. Adapting to best coding practices also helps in reducing the side effects.
In conclusion , side effects in web development are an integral part but these should become a headache to web developers if it is not managed and maintained properly. These side effects will create many complications to our web applications and websites.
If side effects are found in an earlier stage it is important to prevent this problem. Side effects may be obtained in different types. By forecasting and adopting practices like
ensuring the correct cleanup process and identifying side effects , web developers can prevent the upcoming negative problems. Preventing side effects at the early stage will help to ensure better user experience and more maintainable usage.
