I’ve been coding in Javascript for a little over a month now and I have to say, it’s been very interesting. We’ve been able to write code and run it on a private address through various web browsers. This just gets me very excited in what we will be learning in the future coming weeks. However, this past week, we moved off of JSFiddle and into a new program called Intellij. At first I got a little frustrated when we had to set the different programs to work simultaneously. But it was a hill that I eventually overcame. During the proccess of installing the tools that we need and don’t need, we had to install ESLint, a form of coding standard tool that saves a lot of time when doing assinments.
Coding Standards are basically guidelines that help you improve your format and coding habits. However, the one thing that a lot of the programmers like about coding standards is the detection of misspelled or misused code. When I was taking ICS 212 last semester, we used the terminal application along side with unix to write our assignments. I noticed that when I ran a project, sometimes it wouldn’t detect my misspelled lines. This got very iritating because I’d have to look through all my code just to input one letter. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes unix will work perfectly on most days. But on the rare days those missteps can cost you time and energy if you know that your project should run.
From the time I’ve been using Intellij with ESLint, I can confirm that it has saved me from turning in unchecked assignments. By keeping myself in check for those silly mistakes, I can continue to improve my style of coding in whatever language I prefer. ESLint actually takes it to another level when it comes to following code standards because not only does it catch the misspelled words, it also shows you if you wrote a method that has never been used. The satisfaction of getting the green check mark always gets me more intrigued into writing different complex methods to test my skill on writing code perfectly and effectively. I know for a fact that I’ll make silly and simple mistakes throughout my time as a programmer but by having some sort of verification from an applied tool can help me become a better overall developer.