Why and how JavaScript developers use linters

Abstract

A linter is a type of static analysis tool that warns software developers about possible errors in code or violations to coding standards. By using such a tool, errors can be surfaced early in the development process when they are cheaper to fix, and code can be kept more readable and maintainable. For such a tool to be successful, it is important for its creators to understand the needs and challenges of developers when using a linter. Furthermore, it needs to be made clear to developers why using such a tool can be beneficial, along with how linters can be configured to identify appropriate and relevant issues for their projects.In this thesis, we examine developers' perceptions of linters to increase our knowledge on these tools for JavaScript, the most widely used programming language in the world today. More specifically, we study why and how developers use ESLint, the most popular JavaScript linter, along with the challenges that they face while using the tool. We collect data with three different methods where we first interview 15 experts on using linters, then analyze over 9,500 ESLint configuration files and finally survey more than 300 developers from the JavaScript community. The combined results from these analyses provide developers, tool makers and researchers with valuable knowledge and advice on using and developing a linter for JavaScript.

The Adoption of JavaScript Linters in Practice: A Case Study on ESLint

“…. In our ASE paper[20], we affirmed that these results only contradicted previous literature. In this paper, in the light of new data, we observe that false positives are still an open question in JavaScript linters.…”

“…This paper extends our previous work "Why and How JavaScript Developers Use Linters" that appeared at the 32nd IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (ASE), 2017 [20]. Our previous work included a qualitative analysis of interviews with JavaScript developers, which is now extended with an extensive analysis of linter configurations in OSS projects, along with a survey distributed in the JavaScript community.…”

On Reducing the Energy Consumption of Software

“…After 10 interviews, we noticed a convergence of the collected data and thoughts [40], even considering the difference of technologies mastered by our participants and the types of projects they usually work on. Moreover, 10 is a decent number of participants that is close to the studied population by other similar works [6,13,36,38].…”

Current Challenges in Practical Object-Oriented Software Design

“…Current solutions: Taking into consideration the domain and the architecture of the system under study has been gaining attention from the community in the last years. Although linters are widely used [35], [36], and quality monitoring strategies such as Continuous Inspection have been proposed [26], researchers have shown that the domain of the application matters when it comes to the presence of code smells [22], that code metric distributions are statistically different among the different architectural roles of classes in a system [3], [23], and that specific architectures may have their own specific smells [2], [19].…”