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How Codacy streamlines code reviews

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To increase the software This happens for several reasons, including being too close to the code, spending too much time on it, not stopping to consider alternate implementation approaches and insufficient experience. These aren’t negative critiques. We’re all prone to these limitations from time to time.

So no matter whether we’re a junior Specifically, they can help us uncover issues such as:

  • Logic errors
  • Unnecessary code complexity
  • Code style violations; and
  • Insufficient code documentation

What’s more, Provide the opportunity for senior Ensure knowledge is shared among the team and not stored with a limited number of people.

So, as you can see, by running regular Online tools simplify Gladly, the major code hosting platforms, such as GitHubGitLab, and Online Tools Make Simplify Code Reviews

In the screenshot above, you can see an example discussion around a documentation change in the ownCloud Android app manual that I was involved in recently on GitHub. An aspect of the change has been marked as requiring further work. It’s trivial to see where the changes have been requested and, thanks to the What’s more, whether we work together in an office, across a series of distributed offices, or from home offices and virtual locations around the globe, these tools are accessible 24/7. And any member of a team or the broader organization can Manual Where these tools fall down, however (or should I say, can be limited) is that the reviews require one or more people to conduct them. That means that each review requires someone to read through the changes to ensure that there have not been any regressions, code style violations, increased logic complexity, and so on.

Depending on the size and skill of your team, manual Then there are factors that further complicate manual reviews. If Automated Therefore, it makes sense for automatable Through the use of these tools, all As they’re automatable, they can be integrated into your Github or Bitbucket (likely via git hooks), at a variety of points in the development lifecycle. These points can include after individual commits, before branches are merged, and before code deployments.

Automatable Code Review Tools Save Time

In addition to git hooks, a significant number of these tools can also be integrated with a number of the leading IDEs and text editors. These include the JetBrains/IntelliJ suites, which you can see in the screenshot above, However, there is a catch, they have to be set up and configured by each, individual, Then there’s the possibility that one or more setups may not be the same as all the rest. As a result, not all Use external So that’s where external tools and services, such as CodacyFirst, as they’re external services, the core service is always available and is supported by an independent team. Given that, no specific technical knowledge, nor direct investment is required to either set it up or to maintain it.

Second, they don’t need to be set up and configured on a per/It’s worth noting, however, that using code analysis tools locally, can lead to a reduced workload when deployed remotely. This both keeps Third, they integrate seamlessly with the hosted version control platforms that we mentioned earlier, those being GitHub

You can see in the image above, that the automated review has been automatically run against the changes made. Now let’s get more specific; with a service such as Codacy, and a good quality checklist, you can apply a coding standard or a series of code analysis patterns for one or all In addition to reviewing a code commit, or How is the What are the hotspots in my code?

  • Are there areas that consistently cause problems?
  • Are some Fourthly, for each issue that’s highlighted, you have documentation about why it’s an issue and was flagged for review. It’s one thing to know that something is a problem, but it’s essential to understand why. If no one knows why a section of code was marked for review, they cannot learn and grow from the experience and avoid repeating it in future.

    In conclusion

    No However, manual But, while these tools can be and often are excellent, they too have their limitations, most notably that they don’t look at a project holistically or show trends over time. For those, and other, reasons using an external, dedicated service will often provide the best value, and give the greatest return on investment for GIVE CODACY A TRY

    If you’re keen to improve the quality of your Read more about some our simple rules for implementing a great code review process here.


    Codacy is used by thousands of developers to analyze billions of lines of code every day!

    Getting started is easy – and free! Just use your  GitHub, Bitbucket or Google account to sign up.

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