Integrate checks for JavaScript Coding Standards

[westonruter]

On 21 March 2013, Tom McFarlin posted that he contributed the first ever WordPress JavaScript Coding Standards:

Anyway, one of the things about the WordPress Coding Standards that’s always seemed incomplete to me is how little it focused on JavaScript. It provides guides for PHP, for HTML, and it even has a stub for CSS, but there’s nothing in the Codex about JavaScript.

For the past few months, I’ve been working on exactly that. Today, I contributed to the WordPress Coding Standards by introducing the WordPress JavaScript Coding Standards.

The JavaScript Coding Standards have been moved over to the Core Contributor Handbook: http://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/coding-standards/javascript/

We should look at creating sniffs specifically for enforcing the JavaScript rules.

[GaryJones]

Those JS CS haven't been "ratified" in any way yet - Tom considers them a first draft from what he could see in existing code (and we know that WP core isn't great about following its own standards).

Is this something that should be done in PHP, or would a jshint config file (or similar) be a better starting point for the JS side of things?

[westonruter]

Yeah, we should definitely hold off on implementing these until they get ratified.

Including a jslint/jshint config file would be a great start.

It seems PHP_CodeSniffer has the ability to tokenize JS and write sniffs for them in PHP: http://gregsherwood.blogspot.com/2008/03/phpcodesniffer-and-javascript-lint.html

But using a JavaScript-specific tool may be better, although it would require more configuration to get set up.

[GaryJones]

While PHPCS can check JS, I think JSCS is going to be a better tool for the job.