2020-12-16
1346
#vanilla javascript
Victor Jonah
30678
Dec 16, 2020 ⋅ 4 min read

What is railway oriented programming?

Victor Jonah I am a Software Developer with over three years of experience working with JavaScript and its frameworks. I currently work as a remote software developer for a tech agency.

Recent posts:

You're doing vibe coding wrong: Here's how to do it right. A LogRocket article

You’re doing vibe coding wrong: Here’s how to do it right

Vibe coding isn’t just AI-assisted chaos. Here’s how to avoid insecure, unreadable code and turn your “vibes” into real developer productivity.

Chizaram Ken
Oct 28, 2025 ⋅ 11 min read

Exploring spec-driven development with the new GitHub Spec Kit

GitHub SpecKit brings structure to AI-assisted coding with a spec-driven workflow. Learn how to build a consistent, React-based project guided by clear specs and plans.

Emmanuel John
Oct 28, 2025 ⋅ 7 min read

The different ways to use CSS :has(), with examples

The CSS :has() pseudo-class is a powerful new feature that lets you style parents, siblings, and more – writing cleaner, more dynamic CSS with less JavaScript.

Daniel Schwarz
Oct 24, 2025 ⋅ 7 min read

Kombai AI: The AI agent built for frontend development

Kombai AI converts Figma designs into clean, responsive frontend code. It helps developers build production-ready UIs faster while keeping design accuracy and code quality intact.

Jude Miracle
Oct 23, 2025 ⋅ 7 min read
View all posts

5 Replies to "What is railway oriented programming?"

  1. In the last example, wouldn’t you still need to check isValidated before calling sendMail(), or maybe passing it in would be more in line with this design pattern? Or maybe I’m missing something, its late. 🙂

  2. Its is really unclear how the last example allows for decomposition of a single failure/sucess value to multiple firstname, lastname values

  3. Am I missing something? This seems like a basic overview of the Maybe Monad with respect to exceptions, but without any of the work shown. You haven’t given any mechanisms for ‘self-healing’, or dealing with the unhappy path at all, just that you CAN switch to one and that it’s better to write small functions than to throw all error handling into the main function.

  4. The principles of this “railroad” concept is nothing new. I was taught error handling like this over 30 years ago.

    One minor suggestion – rather than “success” or “failure”, the reality is that there is success, recoverable failure, non-recoverable unit failure, and non-recoverable app failure. The developer needs to determine if a failure is recoverable (e.g. login failure, connection timeout, etc.) or non-recoverable. If the latter, the developer needs to decide if the app is now unusable, or just one portion of it.

    Another suggestion – don’t just return success or failure. Include the appropriate enum flag, but also include in the return object details about what went wrong, such as all the error messages in the exception stack, snapshot values of runtime variables, what module, method, and line number the error occurred, etc., not only for logging, but for useful information for the user in a recoverable failure.

Leave a Reply

Hey there, want to help make our blog better?

Join LogRocket’s Content Advisory Board. You’ll help inform the type of content we create and get access to exclusive meetups, social accreditation, and swag.

Sign up now