With all the different programming languages and coding styles, reading code can be a pain. There were times where I would even get frustrated at my own code, like searching for that ending-curly brace which was on the wrong line. I’ve also had professors who preferred different styles which quickly became confusing and it made me wish that there was a universal format or a program that would fix these style errors. Fortunately, I was introduced to one in my Software Engineering class, ESLint. This became a game-changer for me because it gives me the opportunity to write code more efficiently and pick up new information faster.
Based on my experience, using ESLint has already helped me tremendously even though I’ve only gone through a week of use at the time of writing this. Ever since my first program, I wondered and experimented with different styles, for example deciding whether to add spaces after function calls. ESLint solved that issue up right away while also keeping a neatly formatted code structure so I could focus more on the algorithms rather than the appearance. The green check mark that ESLint provides is also helpful when debugging. There were countless times where I would change correct code using guess and check to find the problem, but the green check turns to a red x, indicating where the problem is, and sometimes what’s causing it. I’ve had positive experiences using this program for error checking, but it’s also been useful for learning new things.
The underscore functions that Javascript uses is still a relatively new concept to me, but ESLint helps to ease the confusion, even with the smallest fixes. Underscore makes coding simpler but arguably its downfall is making code more condensed, leaving room for syntax errors. For example, modifiers in the map function require a lot of spaces and one line code, and that’s all for one parameter. ESLint lets me know where a space would be most appropriate or if I’m missing a semicolon. Simple errors, but without ESLint I would be spending more time than necessary finding those bugs.
ESLint is a wonderfully useful tool that has given me great success in error checking and code efficiency. As a beginner in Javascript, I would highly recommend it, especially when writing programs become longer and debugging becomes much more tedious.