Replace individual lodash.* packages with lodash or remove entirely

[dhruvkb]

Problem

Individually packaged lodash functions are deprecated and their usage is discouraged. They also don't work well with TypeScript as individual @types/ packages need to be added for all of them.

Description

The use these functions should be replaced with lodash or lodash-es.

Alternatives

The deprecation notice provides some viable alternatives. A significant alternative is to remove lodash altogether and write some of the functions ourselves or use smaller third-party libraries with a more specific focus.

Implementation

• 🙋 I would be interested in implementing this feature.

[sarayourfriend]

A few reasons to remove lodash:

0. Lodash is huge for what it is, minified it's 73.3kb. I wouldn't want to encourage using more of it.
1. It doesn't tree shake well. Even if you use the lodash/whatever access the lodash library functions are all implemented in other lodash library functions so you end up still pulling in a large amount of the lodash library anyway.
2. It has unusual semantics like list-first parameter order and swallows null/undefined in ways that encourage unsafe modern JavaScript. It has the appearance of something like a functional programming library but doesn't follow any conventional FP semantics (like list-last parameters or type safety).
3. It encourages reaching for a library when built-in native Array and Object functions would work just as well (and be much faster thanks to heavy engine optimization).
4. The functions it exports that don't have direct native replacements are typically less-efficient and focused than one-off libraries. For example, memize is better at memoization than lodash.memoize.

[dhruvkb]

@sarayourfriend based on your points could you make a task-list of issues to remove Lodash usages one-by-one? That seems like a good way to create lots of small good first issues.

[sarayourfriend]

Sure thing!

[sarayourfriend]

Done! https://github.com/WordPress/openverse-frontend/milestone/14

[dhruvkb]

Let's close this issue then?

[sarayourfriend]

Closing as replaced by the milestone and subsequent issues.