EditorConfig vs. Eslint vs. Prettier: Is it worthwhile to use them all?

Question

I am trying to set up some tools to help maintain consistency in a codebase used by multiple developers. Is it necessary to use EditorConfig, ESlint and Prettier all together? As far as I understand, EditorConfig is used to set coding styles/rules, ESlint is used to ensure code is formatted consistently by throwing warnings if code does not follow rules, and prettier is used to automatically format code based on the rules. However, I believe you can customize rules in prettier, which in turns does the job of EditorConfig. Is this true? What is the best combination of tools to use to maintain consistent code?

Answer 1

In my experience, the best combination is all 3, and here's why:

EditorConfig: This helps your editor produce code that looks like your style guide as you go. While this isn't strictly necessary in order to achieve your goals, it's nice if you're always looking at code that follows the same coding styles. Otherwise if you don't have EditorConfig, as you're typing your editor will auto-format differently to the rest of the code base, which is confusing. Of course if you've set up prettier it'll fix it before it goes into your code base, but still, why would you want to look at it in one format while you're writing it and then have it switch when you go to commit? Might as well be consistent.

Prettier: Automatically formats your code. I like to set it up to do this when I stage my files for a commit, so that it's physically impossible for me to commit code that doesn't match my style guide.

ESLint: So why would you want a linter too? Because ESLint does more than just style. It picks up when you declare variables you don't use, or reference things that aren't defined, amongst a few other niceties. So while its role diminishes somewhat compared to the days before prettier, it's still useful to have in a project to catch the other errors.

Hope that helps!