I need to mark a number foo invalid and can't use -1 because foo can be negative. I still don't want to bother the compiler by changing the type. Both Infinity and NaN satisfy typeof === 'number', so I could use either? Are there any pitfalls with either?
Example: NaN != NaN (but there is Number.isNaN), but Infinity === Infinity.
I need to check whether the new number equals the old foo, so I would use NaN because it's shorter while semantically in my code both make sense.
Edit: Usage is to determine whether the cached value is still valid. (Note the original is written in Coffeescript.)
someCachedGetter: (() => {
let foo = NaN; let cache = null;
return () => {
let t = getFoo();
if (foo === t) { return cache; }
else { foo = t; return cache = expensiveOperation(); }
}})(),