Here’s the Deal

JSLint vs JSCS

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When comparing JSLint vs JSCS, the Slant community recommends JSCS for most people. In the question“What are the best JavaScript linting tools?” JSCS is ranked 3rd while JSLint is ranked 6th. The most important reason people chose JSCS is:

JSCS supports custom reporters, which are very helpful when you want to integrate JSCS with other tools that require a specific writing style.

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Common Questions

What are the best JavaScript linting tools?

Pros

Pro
Enforces a very high standard

Since it's relatively old (it was made in 2002) and made by Douglas Crockford, considered a JavaScript God by many JavaScript programmers. It was created to enforce what in Crockford's experience are the good parts of JavaScript. This means that it's considered by many the best way to enforce the highest standards in JavaScript.

Pro
No setup required

JSLint comes preconfigured and ready to be used.

Pro
Support for custom reporters

JSCS supports custom reporters, which are very helpful when you want to integrate JSCS with other tools that require a specific writing style.

Pro
Several presets available

JSCS needs a configuration file and a preset to start linting your code. But it's not a problem since there are a lot of pre-made presets available in their website. jQuery style, and Google coding style for example are included.

Cons

Con
Highly opinionated

JSLint has a very strict, dogmatic ruleset that cannot be changed or warnings turned off. So much so that rarely any code will pass JSLint tests. It's reasonable to evaluate if all warning are worth changing.

Con
Difficult to know which rule is causing which error

Since you can't edit the rules and it's not programmed in a way to display the rule that's being broken, it's difficult to understand which rule has been broken.