Coding Standards

09 Feb 2023

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Belief

Coding standards are often thought of as a tedious way to format your code akin to the feeling of forgetting a punctuation mark when writing in a speaking language. However, I believe that this notion is harmful to the development of one’s software engineering skills as coding standards possess much more than simple syntax error checking. To elucidate, coding standards provide a way for a user to accurately learn the structure and manner of writing code, but if the user is a novice in the language, then it allows him to learn the language through correct syntax and semantics.

Reflection

In my personal experience, I delved into using an integrated development environment I wasn’t familiar with, IntelliJ IDEA, and used ESLint, a static code analysis tool following the coding standard for the most recent version of JavaScript. After a week of use, my writing of code has noticeably enhanced as I believe my brain as subconsciously conformed to the coding standards through practice. I find myself not consistently making syntax and semantic errors after thorough coding with ESLint and its coding standards. Overall, I believe that following the coding standards are a great way to learn and refine your skills in a language.