Screening Your Code For Risks: Lessons From a Minnesota Porch

In Minnesota, the mosquito season opens right after hockey ends. With a well‑screened porch, you can sit comfortably while the swarm buzzes outside. Without one, you’re the evening buffet. The difference is comfort versus chaos. In Minnesota, a well-made, well-maintained, screened-in porch is the envy of the neighborhood.

Similarly, in the world of software development, a linter is like those window screens. Just as screens shield you from pesky mosquitoes, linters safeguard your code from bugs and issues. Without a linter, your code is vulnerable to numerous bugs that can cause significant problems. An outdated linter or one with disabled features is like a screen with holes; it has some protection, but not enough.

A software project needs a robust and well-maintained set of linters, just as a proud Minnesota porch needs intact screens.

Each window, door, or floorboard on a porch might let in bugs. When screening your porch, you must seal or screen all openings. Similarly, software has a variety of ways that risks can slip in:

• Through any language in a project
• From different contributors
• By accident
• By recklessness or neglect

A linter evaluates your software as text. This type of evaluation is called “static code analysis”, as opposed to dynamic code analysis, which assesses your code during execution.

A linter not only finds bugs but also improves code maintainability. Maintainability has a direct correlation not only with preventing bugs but also with enabling quick reactions to them. Linters can also enforce code style and security practices, and provide performance hints.

Projects almost always include more than one language. Risks come in any language. If your project includes multiple languages, run linters for those languages as well. For example, a Ruby project may have the linter Rubocop. However, it might also include Hadolint for Dockerfiles, ShellCheck for shell scripts, and ESLint for JavaScript/TypeScript.

Where does your project’s code come from? It could be from you, your employees, your contractors, or other teams. It could be copied and pasted, or even generated by AI. It could come from junior developers or senior developers. Risky code could come from any of these contributors.

To ensure code integrity, integrate all linters into your continuous integration (CI) pipeline.

Developers make honest mistakes. A developer might misspell a variable, shadow a method or variable, or leave debug statements behind. These accidents open the door to larger issues. Linters act like a quick patch kit, catching and flagging these slips-ups before they grow into serious problems.

Recklessness manifests as disregarding linter warnings, disabling rules for convenience, or approving a PR that turns off linting rules. Some developers think they’re ‘smarter than the linter’ and disable rules they dislike. If all developers did this, there would be no linter left.

Neglect can be more subtle, such as outdated dependencies, silenced warnings, piling-up unaddressed code smells, or failing to keep your linters up to date.

Both recklessness and neglect erode your defenses, leaving your project exposed. Linters work only if they are maintained and enforced.

Actionable Takeaways

• Run language-specific linters
• Treat warnings seriously
• Integrate all your linters into CI
• Do not allow developers to disable rules unilaterally
• Keep your linters and configs up to date

Just as Minnesotans enjoy bug-free summer evenings on their screened-in porches, developers can enjoy comfort and safety when their linting setup is complete and cared for. A porch screen isn’t set-and-forget; it needs inspecting, patches, and care. The same holds for linters: they are a part of the development environment. Keep them updated, treat warnings as serious, and avoid shortcuts. Strong defenses turn potential chaos into calm, more predictable progress.

• John Cavalieri

  Software Engineer

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