Last Updated: 2024-11-23

My ALE linter stopped working altogether because of a syntax error in the linter config. This caused me to become complacent about everything passing the linter, so much so that I passed on the lint config to a colleague and proclaimed everything passed (since I saw no errors in my editor)

In reality, there were tons of problems with the code and it was embarrassing to send a broken lint file to a colleague.

Lessons

• Non-loading linters should fail loudly in editors. Maybe a status line error message.
• External, non-editor linting scripts should also be run as part of a git push hook, to keep things honest and catch these errors. Otherwise they sneak by unnoticed.