Print5.5.3 JSLint/JSHint
One strategy for avoiding errors when you test your apps in a browser is to catch those errors in your development environment. A linter is a tool that is used to analyze code for potential errors before execution. Linters exist for many programming languages, but in a JavaScript context, JSLint is perhaps the best known. You can use JSLint online by navigating to JSLint, pasting your JS code into the big text box and clicking the JSLint button.
JSLint was developed by Doug Crockford in 2002 and the standards his linter enforces are described on the JSLint website. Many have found some of the JSLint rules to be overly strict (e.g., statements within a function are required to be indented exactly 4 spaces). For this reason, a more flexible alternative was developed as a community-driven open-source project: JSHint.
Many IDEs come equipped with one or both of these tools. Others can have the tools added through a plugin. Notepad++ had a JSLint plugin, but it does not work with the 64-bit version of the IDE (which you're likely to have installed). CodePen provides an Analyze JavaScript option on the JS editor panel's dropdown menu that is based on JSHint.
Pay attention to the availability and implementation of JSLint/JSHint in the IDE review portion of this week's assignment.