Many people think of coding standards as a way to format how code should be written for others to interpret and understand. Whether it may be how many spaces is required, how scopes of functions should look, etc, It brings up an interesting question of whether it is good to have such coding standards. One notable benefit of coding standards is that it allows us to reduce the complexity of our code. Having code be written a certain way reduces the possibilities of confusion for others looking at your source code and can even enhance efficiency, because it would be easier for people to follow and organize their thoughts as they tackle a problem or create functions. I believe that this benefit, along with numerous others, has potential to help programmers learn a programming language.
When I was first learning how to program in an introductory class, I didn’t know much about how code should be written in terms of format or any type of standard, I had just always assumed that you enter return after each ‘;’ and that was that. Upon taking more classes and gaining experience in programming in a few different languages like Java, C, and Javascript, It has become aparent that coding style and coding standards, come hand in hand and are very important for beginners. Having a conding standard to follow not only reduces confusion, in cases where something isn’t working, but it also allows for better debugging because the code having adopted a standard is very readable.
After using ESLint with IntelliJ to code some functions, I think that it is helping me organize and format my code better. Compared to other code style operations like ESLint that I have used in the past, I think ESLint is very handy because it provides and suggests ways to organize and change your code so you know what’s undefined, unused, etc. It is like a second person looking at your code as you program and pointing out what could cause problems. In terms of how ESLint functions, I definitely appreciate that it tells you that things seem okay when it checks the code, and I believe that this is useful so you know that nothing will go wrong in terms of syntax and declarations if you run the program though there may be exceptions. Ultimately, I think having a coding standard that is universal for all programming languages has benefits that scale very high, especially with large projects and different platforms involved.