✅ Nicholas C. Zakas Announced The Likely End Of ESLint Code Line

ESLint is a static analysis tool that is helping Javascript and Typescript developers write better code since 2013 taking over after TSLint, another widely used back in the days, static analysis tool.

It comes with a set of static analysis rules that recognize unused variables, typos, and a wide range or more sophisticated mistakes and code quality issues.

Nicholas C. Zakas, the creator of ESLint just posted an article that sparked a heated debate about his creation.

As he writes:

We are still stuck on implementing things like async parsers and rules because it’s difficult to plot a path forward that doesn’t cause a lot of pain for a lot of users. This seems like the right time to stop and take stock of where we are and where we want to go.

He also outlines the goals for the rewrite. He wants to write ESLint from the scratch. It would mean that one day, the current ESLint respository will be closed.

He’d like to introduce type checking in the codebase. Not by introducing Typescript but rather JSDoc.

But the most interesting part comes later. His idea is to separate the code for browser JS, node.js. But also, make ESLint language agnostic. It means that it is not only a rewrite. Nicholas ambition seems to be providing a linter for all programming languages.

Aside of the expansion, he’d like to improve ESLint performance, by making more use of WebAssembly and Rust.

His proposal of a complete rewrite of ESLint was received enthusiastically by the supporters and community in general:

It makes it quite clear we will see a new static analysis tool. Maybe under the same, or new name.

In the follow up discussion we can learn more about the idea for the new linter. It may start to compete with Prettier, namely by using abstract syntax tree (AST) to understand the code structure and organize it nicely.

The future ahead of ESLint is very exciting. More modular, capable and…