Know the Standard, Meet the Standard
20 Sep 2018
First Impressions
Working with IntelliJ and ESLint has definitely been a ‘Deja Vu’ sensation. Having worked with Eclipse and Atom before in ICS 211 and ICS 212 gave me a taste of using IDEs in order to code. I definitely enjoy using IntelliJ over JSFiddle. While it took some getting used to in the beginning, IntelliJ has a multitude of benefits that JSFiddle definitely cannot compare to. Being able to have a code style format and syntax check gives me peace of mind while completing assignments while also holding me to a standard.
Check Yes, Juliet
The green check mark. Perhaps I haven’t coded enough assignments or truly rushed myself to setup my development environment during Practice WODs or the real ones. I haven’t had too many issues in making the check mark appear at the top right corner of IntelliJ. To me, just following the coding standards is enough to make it work. I do believe that it is a useful feature, to both avoid the practice of bad coding and to also avoid syntax errors in code. While it could definitely cause some headaches, it also saves me alot of trouble in the long run.
Quality, Not Quantity
With the practice of this course being athletic software engineering, I believe that this should be stressed. Working out without focusing on form yields much less results and benefits than practicing proper form over repetition. I believe the same goes for coding. Bad coding practice can definitely impact your ability to learn a new coding language. Following the standards definitely makes you think twice and check over your work more often, causing the syntax and usage of different functions and in turn, helps you to learn the different nuances of the language you are trying to learn.
Wrap Up
Coding standards can be tough sometimes. Then again, nothing worth doing in the end will be easy in the beginning is something that I live by. Holding yourself to a standard will eventually cause that to become second nature to you. ESLint has helped me to begin that path towards maintaining that standard in my coding practice. Whether it’s through making me work with ESLint to make that green check mark appear, or having the coding standards template reformat my messy code as I go along, I believe that it’s constant and consistent progress. In the end, it’s definitely worth it to practice and follow standards.