A Different Rubric
08 Feb 2018In my freshmen year when I first started learning Java in ICS 111, I was given a simple “guide” of coding standards. This includes capitalizing the second word’s first letter when making function or variables, indenting formats, etc. I agree that coding standards allow someone learning a new language easier. When I started using jsFiddle for ICS 314 we had a “tidy” option that fixed all indentions and adjusting spaces for curly braces. Although the function will still run the same way with different formatting, it is easier for people who read and analyze your code to understand what is going on. By adjusting yourself to adopt this new style revitalizes your knowledge pushing you to learn something new. Although it is not a syntax or grammar issue when learning a new language, knowing how to format your code is important later on when presenting it to a nonbiased audience. 
IntelliJ is the third IDE that I have in my college career and the only one that I am having a very hard time running it on my computer. I was able to run other IDE’s such as Eclipse and NetBeans just fine, but IntelliJ consumes my 6GB of RAM completely leaving crashes and freezes during practice WODS and the actual one. This is a wakeup call for me, as I can’t continue my college career with this six-year-old laptop. The IntelliJ UI is great, but there are some settings that do not remain enabled or disabled after making a new project which is annoying when it comes to doing WOD’s, as I always have to make sure that the settings are correct. Overall, IntelliJ may not run well on my computer, it is an interesting IDE that I will later be getting more accustomed to after getting a new computer.
I am pretty lazy when it comes to formatting code as previous IDE’s that I have used had “tidy” options that will format the code for me. By using ESLint I am learning how to fix my formatting issues on my own without just taking the lazy way out. When I was just using jsFiddle before I would use “let” for everything, never using constants for variables that do not change. I am glad that I am learning the difference between “const” and “let” even though it may not change any of the current functions/programs I am doing right now. There are some annoying formatting issues that I did not notice when writing javascript, such a curly braces have to have space after the function, but this annoyance will eventually disappear after I fix my coding habits.
Knowing proper coding standards is important to develop strong habits that will be relevant later on in future development careers. Understanding correct formatting is essential for your audience to understand what you are trying to do. If your code is messy and ugly it pushes people away, giving them a bad impression of you. Practice is important when it comes to formatting, the more you do it, the more proficient you become.