Write More Meaningful Time Constants

One thing that I strive to achieve is to write code that doesn't need comments to convey meaning. The most basic thing when doing this is to avoid using magic numbers. In this article, I'll illustrate how I avoid using them when it comes to time constants.

Let's take a look at the following line of JavaScript code:

performAction(retryConnection, 1320000);

It is hard to know for sure what 1320000 represents. Is it a time interval or maybe a memory limit?

After a code review, this code might get changed into this:

const retryInterval = 1320000;
performAction(retryConnection, retryInterval);

Now it's clear that it is a time interval. Usually in JavaScript, as in this case, time values are expressed in milliseconds. We don't use milliseconds very often in our daily lives, so it is not straightforward for us to easily visualize how much 1320000 milliseconds represent. Do we retry the connection in minutes? An hour?

Usually, the next attempt to make it more clear is like this:

const retryInterval = 1000 * 60 * 22;
performAction(retryConnection, retryInterval);

Slightly better, but now we have more magic numbers that don't convey much meaning. Let's see if we can do even better:

const retryInterval = 22 * TIME.MINUTES;
performAction(retryConnection, retryInterval);

Much better, isn't it?

To write your time constants like this, just throw the following code in your constants file and you're good to go:

const TIME = {
    MILLISECONDS: 1,
};
TIME.SECONDS = 1000 * TIME.MILLISECONDS;
TIME.MINUTES = 60 * TIME.SECONDS;
TIME.HOURS = 60 * TIME.MINUTES;
TIME.DAYS = 24 * TIME.HOURS;
TIME.WEEKS = 7 * TIME.DAYS;
TIME.MONTHS = 4 * TIME.WEEKS;
TIME.YEARS = 365 * TIME.DAYS;
// Continues adding more units as needed

This principle can be applied to any unit that grows in multiples. Here is how you would express sizes in megabytes:

const SIZE = {
    MEGABYTES: 1,
};
SIZE.GIGABYTES = 1024 * SIZE.MEGABYTES;
SIZE.PETABYTES = 1024 * SIZE.GIGABYTES;
// ...

Or distances in millimeters:

const DISTANCE = {
    MILLIMETERS: 1,
};
DISTANCE.CENTIMETERS = 10 * DISTANCE.MILLIMETERS;
DISTANCE.METERS = 100 * DISTANCE.CENTIMETERS;
DISTANCE.KILOMETERS = 1000 * DISTANCE.METERS;
// ...

Pretty simple! Now we're one step closer to a more meaningful code.