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  4. Code Review
  5. EditorConfig vs Stylelint

EditorConfig vs Stylelint

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

EditorConfig
EditorConfig
Stacks260
Followers61
Votes2
Stylelint
Stylelint
Stacks1.6K
Followers100
Votes6
GitHub Stars11.4K
Forks986

EditorConfig vs Stylelint: What are the differences?

Key Differences between EditorConfig and Stylelint

EditorConfig and Stylelint are two popular code analysis and formatting tools that are used to maintain consistent coding styles among developers working on the same project. However, there are several key differences between the two tools.

  1. Formatting Rules vs Linting Rules: EditorConfig focuses primarily on applying consistent formatting rules across different editors and IDEs. It allows developers to define indentation, line ending, and other formatting preferences. On the other hand, Stylelint is primarily a linter that focuses on enforcing specific coding standards and best practices related to CSS, SCSS, and other style sheet languages.

  2. Supported Languages: EditorConfig is language-agnostic and can be used with any programming language. It provides a way to define and enforce coding styles regardless of the programming language being used. Stylelint, on the other hand, is specifically designed for CSS and style sheet languages. It provides a wide range of rules and plugins that help developers enforce best practices in styling and maintaining these languages.

  3. Linting Capabilities: Stylelint provides a comprehensive set of linting rules that can catch potential errors, as well as stylistic and best practice issues in CSS code. It can detect issues like invalid property values, duplicate selectors, unused styles, and more. EditorConfig, on the other hand, does not offer any linting capabilities. It focuses solely on maintaining consistent styling across different editors.

  4. Integration with Editors and IDEs: Both EditorConfig and Stylelint can be integrated with popular editors and IDEs. However, EditorConfig requires separate plugins or extensions for each editor, whereas Stylelint provides direct integrations with editors like Visual Studio Code, Atom, and Sublime Text. These integrations enable real-time linting and styling suggestions while coding.

  5. Configuration Files: EditorConfig uses a simple and minimal syntax for defining coding styles in a project. The configuration is stored in a file named .editorconfig at the root of the project. Stylelint, on the other hand, uses a more complex configuration approach. It supports configuration files in different formats like JavaScript, YAML, and JSON. The configuration file for Stylelint is usually named .stylelintrc.

  6. Community Support and Extensibility: Stylelint has a larger community and ecosystem in comparison to EditorConfig. There are numerous plugins and extensions available for Stylelint, enabling developers to customize and extend its functionality as per their specific project requirements. EditorConfig, although widely used, has a smaller community and offers limited extensibility options.

In summary, while both EditorConfig and Stylelint help to maintain consistent coding styles, EditorConfig focuses more on formatting and supports any programming languages, whereas Stylelint is specifically designed for CSS and provides comprehensive linting and best practice enforcement capabilities. Stylelint also offers better editor integrations, a larger community, and more extensibility options compared to EditorConfig.

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Advice on EditorConfig, Stylelint

Carlos
Carlos

Mar 14, 2020

Needs adviceonPrettierPrettierESLintESLintgulpgulp

Scenario: I want to integrate Prettier in our code base which is currently using ESLint (for .js and .scss both). The project is using gulp.

It doesn't feel quite right to me to use ESLint, I wonder if it would be better to use Stylelint or Sass Lint instead.

I completed integrating ESLint + Prettier, Planning to do the same with [ Stylelint || Sasslint || EsLint] + Prettier.

And have gulp 'fix' on file save (Watcher).

Any recommendation is appreciated.

465k views465k
Comments
Budi
Budi

Programmer

Aug 19, 2020

Review

I think you scan skip MongoDB for now and focussing on creating web component with Reactjs or Vue, I would also recommend to use TypeScript for type hinting support.

For styling, learn CSS first then upgrade to SASS/SCSS or LESS (pick one as mostly same concept) to make CSS more maintainable.

Also to improve your skill on both sectors, install linters if available. For TypeScipt, there are TSLint and for styling, i think there are Stylint. Linter will help you adapt to make a clean code and understand how other peoples usually styled their code.

41.6k views41.6k
Comments
Alex
Alex

Software Engineer

Aug 7, 2020

Review

you don't actually have to choose between these tools as they have vastly different purposes. i think its more a matter of understanding how to use them.

while eslint and stylelint are used to notify you about code quality issues, to guide you to write better code, prettier automatically handles code formatting (without notifying me). nothing else.

prettier and eslint both officially discourage using the eslint-plugin-prettier way, as these tools actually do very different things. autofixing with linters on watch isnt a great idea either. auto-fixing should only be done intentionally. you're not alone though, as a lot of devs set this up wrong.

i encourage you to think about what problem you're trying to solve and configure accordingly.

for my teams i set it up like this:

  • eslint, stylelint, prettier locally installed for cli use and ide support
  • eslint config prettier (code formatting rules are not eslints business, so dont warn me about it)
  • vscode workspace config: format on save
  • separate npm scripts for linting, and formatting
  • precommit hooks (husky)

so you can easily integrate with gulp. its just js after all ;)

159k views159k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

EditorConfig
EditorConfig
Stylelint
Stylelint

It is a file format and collection of text editor plugins. It helps maintain consistent coding styles for multiple developers working on the same project across various editors and IDEs.

A mighty, modern CSS linter that helps you enforce consistent conventions and avoid errors in your stylesheets.

Statistics
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Stars
11.4K
GitHub Forks
-
GitHub Forks
986
Stacks
260
Stacks
1.6K
Followers
61
Followers
100
Votes
2
Votes
6
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 2
    Y6y
Pros
  • 5
    Great way to lint your CSS or SCSS
  • 1
    Only complains about real problems

What are some alternatives to EditorConfig, Stylelint?

Code Climate

Code Climate

After each Git push, Code Climate analyzes your code for complexity, duplication, and common smells to determine changes in quality and surface technical debt hotspots.

Codacy

Codacy

Codacy automates code reviews and monitors code quality on every commit and pull request on more than 40 programming languages reporting back the impact of every commit or PR, issues concerning code style, best practices and security.

Phabricator

Phabricator

Phabricator is a collection of open source web applications that help software companies build better software.

PullReview

PullReview

PullReview helps Ruby and Rails developers to develop new features cleanly, on-time, and with confidence by automatically reviewing their code.

Gerrit Code Review

Gerrit Code Review

Gerrit is a self-hosted pre-commit code review tool. It serves as a Git hosting server with option to comment incoming changes. It is highly configurable and extensible with default guarding policies, webhooks, project access control and more.

SonarQube

SonarQube

SonarQube provides an overview of the overall health of your source code and even more importantly, it highlights issues found on new code. With a Quality Gate set on your project, you will simply fix the Leak and start mechanically improving.

RuboCop

RuboCop

RuboCop is a Ruby static code analyzer. Out of the box it will enforce many of the guidelines outlined in the community Ruby Style Guide.

CodeFactor.io

CodeFactor.io

CodeFactor.io automatically and continuously tracks code quality with every GitHub or BitBucket commit and pull request, helping software developers save time in code reviews and efficiently tackle technical debt.

ESLint

ESLint

A pluggable and configurable linter tool for identifying and reporting on patterns in JavaScript. Maintain your code quality with ease.

Amazon CodeGuru

Amazon CodeGuru

It is a machine learning service for automated code reviews and application performance recommendations. It helps you find the most expensive lines of code that hurt application performance and keep you up all night troubleshooting, then gives you specific recommendations to fix or improve your code.

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