Spent 2 months debugging a missing semicolon in JavaScript before I learned to use a linter

Back when I first started coding, I'd sit there for an hour staring at the console trying to spot a missing bracket or comma by eye. Then I discovered ESLint after a buddy in a Discord group told me about it. Now I just run it and it catches my dumb mistakes in 2 seconds flat. Anyone else waste way too long hunting typos before realizing tools do it for you?

2 comments

2 Comments

mark_smith591mo agoTop Commenter

Devil's advocate here - honestly, I think linters make people LAZY at actually learning the language. You spend two months staring at a missing semicolon, and you BET you'll NEVER forget that mistake again. That's real learning through pain. A linter just gives you the answer without the lesson.

foster.mary1mo ago

Gotta push back on this one, Mark. Staring at a missing semicolon for two months isn't "learning the language," it's just wasting time you could spend actually understanding how functions work or why your logic is broken. A linter catches that typo in 2 seconds so you can focus on the bigger stuff like variable scope or async flow. I'd rather spend my brain power on solving real problems instead of memorizing where a stupid dot goes. Painful lessons don't make you a better coder, they just make you frustrated and tired.