A deep dive into linting in Node.js

The text discusses the role of linting tools in the JavaScript/Node.js ecosystem, highlighting popular tools like ESLint, JSLint, and JSHint that perform static code analysis to detect programmer-induced errors and enforce code consistency. Linters apply rules from configuration files to maintain code quality, especially in large projects, by identifying formatting irregularities, bugs, and bad coding practices. Style guides such as Prettier complement linters by handling stylistic rules, ensuring uniformity across a codebase. ESLint is emphasized for its extensibility and capability to manage both code quality and formatting rules, which helps developers write clean, readable, and consistent code. The article also touches on the importance of linters for interpreted languages like JavaScript, where they catch errors before runtime, contrasting with compiled languages where errors are identified during compilation. Overall, linting rules are essential for maintaining a high standard of code quality and consistency within development teams.