My Love-Hate Relationship with Coding Standards
25 Sep 2024
My Reflections on Coding Standards
When I first started programming, coding standards seemed like trivial preferences. Whether to use tabs or spaces, where to place braces, or how to name variables. I thought these were minor details that didn’t have a big impact on the quality of the code. However, over time, I’ve come to realize that coding standards are far more important than just stylistic choices. In fact, I agree that if there’s one software engineering technique that can improve code quality, it is the consistent use of coding standards.
Coding standards do more than make code look neat. They enhance readability and maintainability. By obeying by a set of guidelines, teams can collaborate more effectively, as everyone writes code in a uniform style. This makes it easier to read and understand each other’s code.
My Experience with ESLint and VSCode
After my first week of using ESLint with VSCode, I have mixed feelings both appreciative and, at times, a bit frustrated. ESLint is useful in catching errors and enforcing coding standards in real-time, which has undoubtedly improved the quality of my code. But addressing every ESLint warning can be tedious sometimes, especially when the tool is flagging minor issues that don’t seem to impact functionality. Frequently, it feels like I’m spending more time satisfying ESLint than actually writing code. But I’ve come to realize that these “minor” issues can accumulate, leading to technical debt and harder to maintain code in the long run. In my opinion, the initial pain of fixing these errors is outweighed by its benefits. Having ESLint constantly check my code feels like having a code reviewer that’s always available. And overall, it has made me more disciplined at code writing.
Conclusion
Coding standards are not just about aesthetics. They improve collaboration and reduce errors. Tools like ESLint might seem demanding at first, but they are essential for maintaining code quality and consistency. Embracing coding standards and the tools like ESLint that enforce them is a worthwhile investment that pays off in the form of more maintainable code.