Benchmark: Lodash _.first vs native shift()

HTML Preparation code:

<script type="text/javascript" src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/lodash.js/4.17.11/lodash.core.js"></script>

Tests:

_lodash
_.first([1, 2, 3, 4, 5]); _.first([1, 2, 3, 4, 5], 2);
native
[1, 2, 3, 4, 5].shift(); [1, 2, 3, 4, 5].slice(0, 2);

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
_lodash
native

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

Run details: (Test run date: 8 months ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/139.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 139 on Mac OS X 10.15.7

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
_lodash	248830656.0 Ops/sec
native	43672420.0 Ops/sec

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model llama3.2:3b, generated one year ago):

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

Let's break down the provided benchmark and explain what's being tested, compared, and the pros and cons of each approach.

**Benchmark Overview**

The benchmark compares the performance of two approaches:

1. Using Lodash (`_lodash`) to call the `first` method on an array, with and without a second argument.
2. Using native JavaScript methods (`native`) to shift the first element from the array and then create a new slice of the original array.

**Lodash `_first` Method**

The `_.first` method is part of the Lodash library, which provides a collection of functional programming helpers. The purpose of this method is to return the first element of an array.

In the benchmark, the `_.first` method is called on two different arrays:

* Without any arguments: `_.first([1, 2, 3, 4, 5])`
* With a second argument (start index): `_.first([1, 2, 3, 4, 5], 2)`

**Native JavaScript Methods**

The native JavaScript methods being tested are:

* `shift()`: removes and returns the first element of an array.
* `slice()`: creates a shallow copy of a portion of an array.

In the benchmark, these methods are called on the same array:

* `shift()` is used to remove the first element from the array: `[1, 2, 3, 4, 5].shift();`
* Then, `slice()` is used to create a new slice of the original array, starting from index 0 and ending at index 2: `[1, 2, 3, 4, 5].slice(0, 2);`

**Pros and Cons of Each Approach**

Here are some pros and cons of each approach:

**Lodash `_first` Method**

Pros:

* Less code to write (using a library function)
* Potential for better performance since it's optimized for use cases like this

Cons:

* Requires the Lodash library to be included, which may add overhead
* May not provide fine-grained control over the indexing process

**Native JavaScript Methods (`shift` and `slice`)**

Pros:

* No external dependencies or overhead
* Provides fine-grained control over the indexing process (indexing is done in a single operation)

Cons:

* Requires more code to write (separate operations for shifting and slicing)
* May have performance overhead due to the creation of an intermediate array with `slice()`

**Other Considerations**

When choosing between these approaches, consider the following factors:

* Performance: If speed is critical, using native JavaScript methods might be a better choice. However, if you're already including Lodash in your project for other reasons, the overhead may not be significant.
* Code readability and maintainability: Using native methods can make code more readable if you're clear about what's happening in each step.

**Other Alternatives**

If you don't want to use Lodash or native JavaScript methods, there are other alternatives:

* Use `Array.prototype[Symbol.iterator]()` to create an iterator that returns the first element of the array.
* Implement your own indexing function using a loop or recursion.
* Explore other libraries or frameworks that provide optimized array manipulation functions.

Related benchmarks:

Lodash _.first vs native shift() (version: 0)

Comparing performance of: _lodash vs native

Created: 5 years ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

_lodash

native

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model llama3.2:3b, generated one year ago):