Errors and bugs are part and parcel of developing software.
There’s no way to avoid them.
There’s always a bug to fix or an error to address.
But what is linting, and why does it matter?
What Is Linting?
Before delving into what linting is, it’s important to understand the base term lint.
On the other hand, a linter is a dedicated tool for detecting lint in your code.
As such, linting is one of thetesting methods every developer should know.
4 Reasons Why Linting Is Important
Every software development project can benefit heavily from linting.
Here are four reasons why:
1.
Helps Check for Errors
Linters can identify certainprogramming errorsearlier on that you may not have noticed while writing code.
This is important as it may help avoid errors later on.
Helps in Enforcing Coding Standards
Every developer may have their preferences and styles of writing code.
While working on a solo project, this is no problem.
However, it can become an issue for collaborative projects.
Linters can do this because they have various rules baked in that are strictly enforced.
Linters can also suggest best practices while doing certain things.
For instance, unused variables have no use in your code.
Some linters can detect and warn against potential security issues.
A good example of this isGosecwhich is available for development projects written in Go and Bandit for Python.
Examples of Linting Tools
Various linting tools are available depending on the programming language you are using.
you’re able to always search online for linters specific to a given programming language.
Linters can identify issues early on and even fix some automatically on your behalf without running your code.
The icing on the cake is security linters which can help identify potential security issues in your code.
