Code Quality with Eclipse Plugins
Tech leads are continually challenged with identifying and governing code quality. The common response is to look to test coverage as a measure of quality. Previously I was challenged to monitor code and architectural quality for over 50 developers both on and offshore. The shear amount of code made manual reviews a nightmare. While had reports on coverage it became apparent that the quality of the tests themselves was also in question. It was time for a more automated review of quality.
After reviewing a series of tools and working through various industry best practices, here is the list of tools I ended up relying on regularly.
Automatically Format on Save
- FormatOnSave (http://ejp.sourceforge.net/formatonsave/update/)
The standard fare
- PMD (http://pmd.sf.net/eclipse/)
- Checkstyle (http://eclipse-cs.sourceforge.net/update)
Often Overlooked
- Find Bugs (http://findbugs.cs.umd.edu/eclipse)
- Enerjy (http://update.enerjy.com/eclipse)
Code Coverage
- Coverclipse (http://coverlipse.sourceforge.net/update)
- EclEmma (http://update.eclemma.org)
Focus on the important code
- JDepend (http://andrei.gmxhome.de/eclipse/)
- Metrics Plugin (http://metrics.sourceforge.net/update)
There are a few really good articles to help you get up and running with these
Check out:
Andrew Glover: In Pursuit of code quality
- In pursuit of code quality: Don’t be fooled by the coverage report
- In pursuit of code quality: Monitoring cyclomatic complexity
- In pursuit of code quality: Code quality for software architects
Metrics
Use the tools available to analyze faster and make your code stronger.
FEEDBACK: Let me know if there are other tools or resources that make your life easier.
