Coding Standards and Software Quality
Coding standards may often seem tedious and trivial. Why waste your time concerning yourself with bracket placement and indentation? In reality, these minor details have a large impact on code quality. Code does not just need to be functional - it needs to be readable, maintainable, and consistent. These qualities make collaboration easier and will improve production quality and efficiency.
When you get in your car first thing in the morning, do you need to think about how you start it? Probably not. You naturally go through the procedure without thinking. But, in a car that’s not yours, you might need a second to get familiar. This same concept can be applied to coding standards. Your first time adjusting to a new coding standard you will have to think about indentations and bracket placement, or putting a space before your comment. However, after a while, it will become second nature and you won’t have to think about it, just like starting your car.
Having a set of standards is crucial to avoid developing bad habits, especially for new programmers or new team members. Standards provide structure which will improve the flow of the onboarding or learning process. Operating with a standard provides consistency and efficiency. If you are constantly changing where you place indentations or new lines, your code will not be as readable. This will not be helpful for your future self or anyone reviewing your code. With a coding standard, you have one less thing to worry about, and your code will appear familiar and easy to debug. You won’t spend any time deciphering the formatting. Coding standards make code maintainable.
This all ties into collaboration - if you are working in a with developers with varying backgrounds, it provides structure and improves efficiency. Everyone is on the same page. Your teammates will be able to glance at your code knowing that it follows the same rules and guidelines. If everyone used their own standards (or had none), more time would be spent squinting than debugging or enhancing the code. Overrall it improves teamwork and communication.
ESLint is a tool for JavaScript and TypeScript that will scan your code for any potential issues. It enforces a coding standard and improves overall quality. When ESLint detects an issue, it will highlight the code in question and suggest the necessary changes.
After working with ESLint in the past week, it has given me a greater appreciation for the importance of maintaining a standard. It reinforces the importance of consistent, readable, and maintainable code. At first, I did find it rather tedious. Towards the end of the week, though, I found myself naturally writing adhering to the standards without thinking about it - and seeing that green check mark.
I found ESLint’s immediate feedback to be helpful in forming the habit of writing standardized code. I would fix any highlighted issues immediately, since nobody likes looking at yellow lines. This made the process more natural and helped me write code correctly the first time.
It’s easy to dismiss coding standards as some form of comformity or aggressive ruleset, but it is more than that. Besides making your code nice to look at, coding standards provide structure that enhances overrall software quality. It creates an environment that rewards writing better software. The only hurdle is learning the standard and making it second nature. This may take some time upfront, but the time is made up in the long run especially in a team environment.