Standardization is an important concept to grasp when dealing with a subject that concerns a big group of people. The effect standardization has is that it sets a clear set of rules, guarantees that the subject structure will be consistent, and it minimizes confusion while maximizing efficiency between individuals. While it is not feasible to have everything in a standardized way, it is still an important strategy that can be employed to great effect in many scenarios. For example, school exams are standardized so that each person has the same set of instructions and same questions, therefore leading to consistent data that will reliably show the professor the strengths and weaknesses of the class. Another good example would be an assembly line at a car factory. Since employees have a clear set of rules on what to do it reduces the confusion of their job leading to more efficient output.
Unsurprisingly, many standards exist for coding. Following a set standard can actually help you learn a programming language better in a variety of ways. For instance, while coding in the IntelliJ environment with the coding standard ESLint enabled, I learned that there exists a lot of ways to make code more concise. An example of this is replacing functions with arrow functions, significantly shortening the syntax. Another example is ESLint detecting redundant code, such as declaring a variable in one line then assigning it a value in the following line. I also learned through ESLint that having a coding standard makes the code more understandable. Since the coding is more concise, there is less confusion as to what each line of code does and how it all relates to each other.
Overall, I gained valuable insight using ESLint for the first time. It has helped me significantly learn more about Javascript, especially the many techniques that exist purely to create more concise code. Learning how to write syntax in a very shortened form is still a novel idea to me since as a C programmer we don’t have much of a choice a lot of the time. It has also helped me realize the importance that standardizing coding brings into the learning environment and the many benefits that can be reaped. I truly believe that if you can implement only one software engineering technique to improve quality, it should be coding standards.