The Quintessential Coding
06 Feb 2024Coding Standards Is The Way To Go
During my first month of learning Javascript, I’ve been writing my code using a browser based IDE called JSFiddle. But now I’ve moved on to writing my Javascript code on a new IDE called IntelliJ in order to expand my skills as a software engineer. At the same time, I implemented the use of coding standards and I honestly believe it’s one of the best practices for any software engineer. Coding standards are basically rules to follow when you are writing code. This may not improve the runtime of your code, but it can improve the quality. Following coding standards for any programming language makes your code look a lot more professional.
A Useful Tool
It’s not easy for me to remember all of the coding standards. Thankfully there is a tool that is compatible with IntelliJ called ESLint that assists me when I write my code. It’s my first time using this tool but I think it is very user friendly and wasn’t too difficult to set up. It’s very similar to how word or google docs checks for any grammar or spelling errors and underlines them with a squiggly line. ESLint underlines anything that violates the coding standards. You can hover over the error and it tells you exactly what’s wrong with it. Sometimes the violations may not be clear to me at first and that’s probably because I’m still learning Javascript. There are alot of terms, keywords, and syntax I don’t know yet. One of them said “Expected property shorthand” and I didn’t know what I had to do to fix it. But that’s okay since ESLint provides details of the violations on their website and sometimes It will give you the option to allow ESLint to fix it.
Coding Standard Violation Examples For Javascript
I’ve come across a lot of coding standard violations in my code. Some of which are due to me forgetting to go back and change the syntax, and others because I’m so used to the way I wrote code in Java.
Using var, let, and const
One coding standard violation that I’ve done, and probably will unintentionally continue doing, involves the use of var, let, and const. Using var is discouraged due to having complications with scoping. Using let and const is much more preferred but which one you use depends on how you use the variables. Using let provides the context that the variable will be reassigned but if it is never reassigned then it’s a violation. In this case we should use const since this means we won’t be reassigning the variable. On the other hand, using const for a variable that is reassigned later is also a violation and will probably throw an error if you try to run it.
I never use var when declaring variables so I’m good with that. However, my mind would default to using let since the code will still work even if the variable is never reassign. But now that I know about coding standards, I can work on changing that mindset.
Equality And Inequality
Another violation I’ve encountered in some of the code I wrote involves the equality and inequality operators. Javascript provides two different versions for them. The regular operator for equality and inequality is == and != respectively. However the use of these is highly discouraged as it could cause problems since it ignores the datatype. Using === and !== instead is better practice as they are much more strict since it takes the datatype into account.
Before I would use the double equals since I’m used to it in Java. I pretty much developed the habit of using the stricter version of the operators instead so you won’t catch me using the regular ones anymore.