Ω: the Omega function

Ω is an experiment in replacing try/catch boilerplate with an [err, result] array, inspired by error return values in Go.

Installation

# npm
npm i --save omega-fn

# yarn
yarn add omega-fn

Usage

const Ω = require('omega-fn')

const [err, result] = await Ω (fnThatMayThrowError, arg1, arg2, ...)

Rationale

This is annoying:

let result

try {
  result = await fnThatMayThrowError()
}
catch (err) {
  // ...
}

// use result

This is nicer:

let [err, result] = await Ω (fnThatMayThrowError)

if (err) {
  // ...
}

// use result

What's it doing?

Not much:

module.exports = async (fn, ...args) => {
  const channels = [undefined, undefined]

  try {
    channels[1] = await fn.apply(null, args)
  }
  catch (err) {
    channels[0] = err
  }
  finally {
    return channels
  }
}

Why Ω?

• Ω represents finality, and this function is conceptually similar to a finally block
• it's keyboard-friendly (at least on a Mac: option+z)
• since the goal is hiding as much annoying syntax as possible, I wanted something that was only a single character
• unclaimed single-char non-alpha keyboard-friendly valid JS identifiers are in very short supply (thanks a lot, $ and _)

If you're weirded out by it, you can always call it something else:

• const omega = require('omega-fn')
• const channels = require('omega-fn')
• const potato = require('omega-fn')