A lot of these fixes can be done automatically and you can customise the whole process to suit your team's needs. Linting is a way to fix problems in your code while still in development mode before your application is ready for production.

Why you should use a linter and code formatter Both tools are fairly well supported in the developer community and extensions are available for both of them in most code editors or IDEs like Visual Studio Code for example. Unlike ESLint it supports a variety of languages like JavaScript, HTML, CSS, GraphQL, Markdown and many others.

Prettier on the other hand is an opinionated code formatter. ESLint is designed to work with JavaScript files only and it is very successful when it comes to ensuring that a codebase is consistent and without notable bugs. The difference between the two is that ESLint is usually responsible for finding and reporting on different patterns inside of ECMAScript/JavaScript code. They are extremely good at what they do which is why they tend to be an essential part of a project setup. Prettier ensures consistency in your code formatting and makes the process automatic.ESLint and Prettier are pretty much the two most popular tools when it comes to doing code analysis and formatting in a developer's codebase. More time can be devoted to solving challenging technical problems instead of wrestling over solved problems like code indentation. Agreeing upon a set of configurations helps with legibility and understanding of code.

It is particularly beneficial when working on a project with multiple collaborators. Having consistent code is a good practice. After creating one of these and checking it into your project, you can ensure that every team member follows the same formatting rules. In this article, you’ll set up Prettier to automatically format your code in Visual Studio Code, also known as VS Code.įor demonstration purposes, here’s the sample code you will be formatting: const name = 'James' const person = įor more specifics on the configuration files, check out the Prettier Docs. Formatting code consistently is a challenge, but modern developer tools make it possible to automatically maintain consistency across your team’s codebase.

Visual studio code prettier