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I guess it depends on what you want out of a linter e.g. if you want it to check just syntax or semantics as well. Is “= NULL” syntactically correct?

A linter is supposed to tell you "you are probably making a mistake."

"= NULL" is as syntactically correct in SQL as "if (x = null)" in C.

If it wasn't, code highlighting or compiling would break, both of which are much much more obvious.

The compiler checks syntax - if that’s all a linter did it wouldn’t be very useful.

`= NULL` is perfectly legal syntax - but it isn't doing what you think it is.

That's what parent is saying. He is contrasting a compiler (which this isn't) to a linter (which this arguably also isn't).