Am I Doing It for Myself or Just for the Green Checkmark?

07 Feb 2023

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Coding Standard Crazy

“Why does your code look like that?” This question is often posed by people who believe in “coding standards.” Cough cough, I’m one of them. I think that “coding standards” help improve the quality and understanding of the program itself. This also makes the lives of other software engineers easier when trying to debug a non-working program or describe a working program.

Must. Get. Green. Checkmark.

Using IntelliJ itself was not far from what I had experienced using CLion and Visual Studio Code during previous courses. The user interface was similar to that of CLion where the files were created and shown on the left, the source code was on the right, and any errors were underlined in red. The IDEs I used before also had the GitHub Desktop integration tool but being able to use hotkeys and open up the console in Google Chrome were new features to me.

Another new experience came from using ESLint to check our code against coding standards. This was my first time ever implementing a code checker into the settings of an IDE. Although I like to follow a coding standard amongst myself, getting used to the style ESLint wanted will take some time. While using ESLint, I finished my first practice code thinking that all the spacing was okay for the reader’s eye and then suddenly my screen lit up with red underlines everywhere. Originally, I was happy to have a tool that could point out where my syntax was wrong or if I forgot a brace or semicolon. After using the tool for a week, sometimes I find it a little tedious to add spaces everywhere in order to just get the green checkmark. However, I know in the long run, this process and coding standard will be beneficial for me.