What are the best practices for throttling and debouncing in web development?

What are the best practices for throttling and debouncing in web development?

Throttling and debouncing are techniques used to control the rate at which a function is executed. Throttling ensures a function is called at most once in a specified time period, while debouncing delays the execution until a certain period of inactivity. Best practices include using throttling for events like scrolling and resizing, and debouncing for input fields and search suggestions.

Can you give me an example of when to use throttling?

Sure! A common example of throttling is during window resizing. If a user resizes their browser window, you might want to limit the number of times a function that adjusts layout is called to improve performance.

And what about debouncing? When should I use that?

Debouncing is ideal for scenarios like search input fields. For instance, if a user types in a search box, you can debounce the search function to only execute after they've stopped typing for a specified duration, reducing unnecessary API calls.

Are there any libraries that can help with these techniques?

Yes! Libraries like Lodash provide built-in functions for both throttling and debouncing, making it easy to implement these techniques in your projects.