One of the more useful elements of the modern developer environment is also one of the oldest development tools. Originally developed as part of YACC (Yet Another Compiler Compiler), the first linter was the equivalent of a grammar checker for C code. Taking its name from the bits of loose fluff found in wool, Lint highlighted errors, bugs, and problematic code.
Lint everything
Over the years, it gave its name to a whole menagerie of linting tools, mainly focused on the C and C++ worlds, but with versions for other languages and programming models. A well-designed linter runs through your code before compilation so you can correct errors and optimize it.
