Can static source code analysis aid my quality practices

Whether or not your organization has a management-driven process improvement program, you can take steps to improve your personal software engineering approach - and perhaps your workgroup's processes - even without official management sanction or leadership, according to Karl Wiegers in "Personal Process Improvement: You don't need an official sanction to tune up your own engineering savvy" in the May 2000 issue of Software Development Magazine.

"Each developer is responsible for the quality of the work she performs" Wiegers said. "Unfortunately, few developers are adequately trained in the arts of quality analysis and measurement, testing and technical review."

Static source code analysis is a basic tool for improving your personal and team productivity, according to Wieger. "Use quality tools to scour your code for as many potential problems as you can. At the least, use (a) static code analyzer... to find subtle defects the compiler and a casual visual scan might miss. A developer once told me that (a static source code analyzer) reported 10,000 errors and warnings when his team ran their program through it, so they never used (the lint tool) again! Finding 10,000 errors and warnings suggests to me that the program had some quality problems. The ostrich approach doesn't make the program more reliable. If something is wrong with your code, fix it now when it's cheap, rather than later when it's painfully expensive.

"Anything you do to upgrade your own capabilities will save time, reduce rework and improve your productivity," Wieger wrote.