One of the challenges with V8 compared to Rhino is that you can’t be sure of the order of global variable initialization. Personally this is not an issue for me, as I avoid any such use of global space, but it is an issue for some. A nice way of dealing with global space is to use namespaces and IEF as I described in Apps Script V8: Multiple script files, classes and namespaces but another, perhaps less obvious way, is put all the variables (and even functions) you need to access from multiple functions in a keystore.

Interesting solution for storing/retrieving variables, particularly when you are using the new V8 runtime.

Source: Apps Script V8: Keystore for global space – Desktop liberation

Martin Hawksey

Member of Google Developers Experts Program for Google Workspace (Google Apps Script) and interested in supporting Google Workspace Devs.

mashe.hawksey.info

Apps Script doesn’t have a module loader system. If you’re used to developing in NodeJs, you’ll also be familiar with importing and exporting to include required modules in your project. With Apps Script, you have no control over the order in which multiple script files are executed. In Legacy Apps Script, there seemed to be some kind of workaround going on so that global statements were executed in a sensible order (I don’t know the details), but in V8 this is not the case. …

My golden rules are

• Nothing executable should be in global space
• Don’t rely on the order that things are processed
• Minimize the number of executable functions (1 is good)
• Always assume your code will be reused somewhere else.

Source: Apps Script V8: Multiple script files and namespaces – Desktop liberation

Martin Hawksey

Member of Google Developers Experts Program for Google Workspace (Google Apps Script) and interested in supporting Google Workspace Devs.

mashe.hawksey.info

V8 adds destructuring from  JavaScript ES6. Legacy Apps Script already had destructuring of arrays added fairly recently, but v8 gives full a destructuring capabilitity. These destructuring and spreading capabilities, which at first may again seem a little like syntactic sugar, have contributed greatly to  the development of state management frameworks such as Vuex and Redux for client side apps. V8 brings some of that cleanliness to Apps Script.

Source: Apps Script V8: spreading and destructuring – Desktop liberation

Martin Hawksey

Member of Google Developers Experts Program for Google Workspace (Google Apps Script) and interested in supporting Google Workspace Devs.

mashe.hawksey.info

V8 adds the arrow function declarator from modern JavaScript. This is a handy shorthand but it’s more than just that. There are some behavioral differences too that you’ll need to understand before diving in. The old way of declaring functions still exists of course, and there will always be a need for it.

More tips and guidance from Bruce Mcpherson for developers migrating code to the Apps Script V8 runtime.

Source: JavaScript V8 Arrow functions, this and that – Desktop liberation

Martin Hawksey

Member of Google Developers Experts Program for Google Workspace (Google Apps Script) and interested in supporting Google Workspace Devs.

mashe.hawksey.info

Sets and Maps can often be a cleaner way of storing data than using Objects or Arrays, even though at first glance they may seem a little redundant. Unlike an array, they are aware of what else is in the map or set (so you can avoid duplicates), and unlike an object, you can use anything as the key – including the item value itself

Given many Apps Script projects focus on manipulating data Bruce Mcpherson provides a useful introduction to Maps and Sets.

Source: Apps Script V8: Maps and Sets – Desktop liberation

Martin Hawksey

Member of Google Developers Experts Program for Google Workspace (Google Apps Script) and interested in supporting Google Workspace Devs.

mashe.hawksey.info

It’s a shorthand way of using a template into which variables are subsituted in a string. This allows for better reuse of string structures, and a few other goodies besides (like all V8 additions, it’s more than just a syntactical spruce up)

Bruce Mcpherson has a very useful post highlighting the benefits of using the new V8 runtime when working with string output

Source: Apps Script V8: Template literals – Desktop liberation

Martin Hawksey

Member of Google Developers Experts Program for Google Workspace (Google Apps Script) and interested in supporting Google Workspace Devs.

mashe.hawksey.info