The landscape of JavaScript is filled with a myriad of frameworks and libraries that can ease the burden of implementing all types of functionality. In Chapter 12, Real-World Challenges, we had a look at the difficulties involved in including external dependencies in our JavaScript projects. The modern JavaScript ecosystem provides a rich variety of solutions here, and so dealing with third-party code is far less burdensome than it was before. Nonetheless, the nature of having to interface with this code hasn't really changed. We must still hope that our selected third-party library or framework provides an interface that is intuitive and well-documented, and functionality that fulfills our requirements.

When dealing with third-party code, there are two crucial processes that will define the ongoing risks or benefits we receive. The first is the selection process, where we make a choice as to which library to use, and the second is our integration and adaptation of the library into our code base. We'll now go over both of these in detail.