Visual Studio integration with JSLint

If you read this blog, one recurring theme is clear for the reader, we love our development tools here at Syndicated Methods!  Javascript has come a long way in recent years, but I would argue that one place it falls short is in the Integrated Development Environment arena.   Yes, I know that Firefox has the Firebug extension, but for me that is more of a debugging environment.  I would much rather that that my IDE incorporates debugging and code quality tools at design time. 

Thanks to Douglas Crockford, we now have a Code Quality tool that targets all that bad Javascript that is out there.  Please read more on his website at www.jslint.com.  But, that only gets us about half way there.  I really want to know when something is wrong while I am writing code.  There is a solution for all of you .net developers.  CodePlex has a project available under the name of JSLint.VS.  Using this Visual Studio add in developers will get code quality feedback on their Javascript at compile time (sorry, no background compiler). 

{ Happy Coding }

** UPDATE [3/6/2009] - Note to self. use a product before you blog about it :).  JSLint itself is a useful tool.  After using it for about a day though I am finding that it is quite brutal on particular syntax.  Specifically around some of the requirements around global variables.  Furthermore, JSlint has major issues with the JQuery framework including the custom code that you write using JQuery.  This makes JSLint a bit of a useless feature for me as most of the Javascript code that I intend to write will be in a framework such as JQuery.  JSLint.vs is also a bit buggy and I started to experience major slow downs with my build.  This will kill my Continuous Integration process, always strive for fast builds, always!  I also didn't like some of the features whrere it adds reminders to fix things into your task list.  I would much rather these be treated as a warning or error much like the legacy compiler in VS.NET.  If anyone has better luck or thinks I am crazy feel free to comment.