Re: [eclipse.org-architecture-council] FindBugs

[David M Williams <david_williams@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I think your intent is good ... great even! 

But, I'd suggest to watch the wording and not making "use of <any 
particular software>" a best practice. 

The best practice should be "Use tools which are designed to find bugs in 
your source code through static analysis or similar means." And then could 
be followed by several "For example" sections or links to experience 
reports. Hopefully these example sections would be provided by other 
members of the architecture council or Eclipse committers that find some 
particular tool or process helpful in an Eclipse project (so that it is 
"concrete" and not just an abstract "could possibly be a helpful thing" 
... as there are lots of those). 

For an example of an example :) Even Eclipse JDT itself should be 
mentioned, with details given of how to change preferences to check for 
more types of potential errors (e.g. unnecessary casts; normally a warning 
by default, but can be more easily seen if set to an error level. These 
are important to inspect and remove, since can not only be unnecessary, 
but can be a sign the code as written is not what was intended. Not to 
mention null checks, unexternalized strings, etc.) 

And, it'd be good to discuss or describe how to set up so it's 
"continuously checking" your code, vs. using every now and then. 

Of course, if there's specific type of bugs you are trying to eliminate by 
naming specific software or process then  then that makes for even better 
"example sections" in the best practice. 

Hope this comment is helpful, and not too far off your original question. 
(To which I'd answer, I haven't used Findbugs in years so I should not 
comment on that :) 







From:
Wayne Beaton <wayne@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To:
"eclipse.org-architecture-council" 
<eclipse.org-architecture-council@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date:
06/05/2009 02:28 PM
Subject:
[eclipse.org-architecture-council] FindBugs
Sent by:
eclipse.org-architecture-council-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx



Does anybody on the AC have experience with FindBugs that they'd care to 
share?

I'd like the AC to consider making the use of FindBugs a best practice 
recommendation for projects.

FindBugs is a static analysis tool that is quite popular.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/13821810/Using-Static-Analysis-to-Find-Bugs

Any thoughts on the topic?

Thanks,

Wayne
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