Coding style, at first thought doesn’t really seem to be that important or as important as the actual coding, but thinking about it more and more, it’s actually quite an important skill to have as a Software Engineer. It’s really one of the basic skills to have as a programmer, that you aren’t really taught at the beginning, but as you go along, you just develop your own way of how you style your code. I don’t think it really matters how you style your code either, as long as it is readable, structured and consistent . Cleaning up your code and allowing it to be readable is one thing, but the consistency of the way you style your code can show your commitment as a programmer. I feel that being committed towards any goal in life greatly increases the chances of being successful in whatever goal you set your mind to, so relating that mindset back to coding, I feel it shows that coding style is just as important as knowing how to write classes, functions, etc.
Personally, I am thankful for IDE’s that have tools to specifically check for coding style errors. Tools like ESLint that cleans up the code and organizes it well really helps to suffice for my OCD-like behavior when I feel there might be something disorganized about my code such as forgetting to put a space between the function name and the open curly bracket that comes after it. Although getting red squiggly lines specifically on coding style errors might be of insignificance to some people, I think it really helps to reach as close as possible, that level of perfectionism that we are all striving for as programmers. Getting errors from coding style can be a pain at first, especially when your code is working as intended, but it helps to get rid of some of the bad habits we may have acquired from when we coded without receiving any feedback on our coding style.
Overall, I feel that learning about coding style as we went along while learning these different languages has helped me to understand how to code more efficiently. As we look at blocks of code from different languages, we can point out many similarities and differences that make up what works and what doesn’t when styling our code for each language. Being able to experience different languages has greatly benefitted us overall as programmers as it gives us a chance to distinguish what we like and what works best for us, not just in terms of the different ways to write the code, but with different ways in which we can style them as well.