Raising the Standard
12 Feb 2025Organization galore!
I’d say I’m sort of an organized person. You know, planners, calendars, to-do lists…
All right, fine. I literally cannot function in chaos. It’s just not in my nature. I wouldn’t call myself a perfectionist, but I definitely like having a sense of control over what’s going on around me; it just makes everything feel more manageable. Of course it’s no surprise that I’ve taken a liking to working with coding standards. Going in blind with sloppy code is the bane of my existence! Having clear guidelines for formatting, structure, and naming conventions makes coding way less stressful and a lot more satisfying.
Plus, it’s nice to know that when I follow these standards, anyone else picking up my code will be able to understand it, even if they don’t know me or my exact thought process. I try to maintain order when taking written notes for the same reason. Do you have any idea how many people ask me for my notes? I’m, like, the notes guy or something.
A helpful, little pest
That being said, I like being organized on my own terms. To be honest, sometimes using ESLint feels a lot like when I was in eighth grade and forced to take Cornell notes instead of notes in the style that actually helped me. (Even now, I am being forced to take Cornell notes—Cornell notes, people! Yuck!—in another college-level class, but I digress…)
I know how to keep my own workspace orderly. A tool that strictly enforces the guidelines can be helpful, but for someone like me, it can also be a little stifling, especially if it’s just catching tiny, trivial errors like an extra newline at the bottom of my code. Overall, I have mixed feelings. I’m sure I’ll adapt to ESLint pestering me by learning to avoid making those errors in the first place, but for now, it’s almost acting like a real backseat driver!