Defining and tracking the code quality

Head of QA department at Intetics, Sergey Terekhov, discusses a code quality platform.

Quality is not a universal value. It is defined by standards, specifications, numbers, factors and different parameters. Hence, when a company wants to develop a high-quality software system, it considers a great number of aspects. Code quality takes one of the leading positions in the list.

Software analysis experts agree that code quality has a remarkable growth of attention and demand these days. They confirm that continuous development of a software system makes the source code significantly complicated after numerous updates. Therefore, the team has to analyse the code on a continual basis to keep the code base in a good maintainable state. This will prevent uncovered technical debts, system crashes and expensive fixes.

Code quality management platform

To avoid those issues, companies seek options of code quality improvement. Code quality management platform serves the purpose. It provides the opportunity to run an in-depth analysis of a code quality level and define the defects density.

The platform analyses code compliance with world and corporate-specific standards, delivers measurements on universally adopted metrics and shows a comprehensive overview of code state. Among the most important and fundamental code quality metrics the platform tracks cyclomatic complexity, fan-out, rule violations, duplications, code coverage, test results, documentation, SQALE quality index, etc.

The analysis results are displayed in a interactive dashboard. It gives the opportunity to easily drill down to problematical parts of the source code which should be fixed.

Why is the platform useful?

The industry adopted set of metrics and standards makes the platform helpful for most of the project stakeholders. Developers are the first in line. They get an optimal reference tool that spots faults and complexities to be fixed. Testers, in turn, get the opportunity to continuously measure and control code quality. For architects, the platform works as an assistant. It shows whether the initial design is maintained or “broken.” The platform is also of high value for managers. It provides them with metrics that deliver information about the level of code quality and the data on the system improvement. Finally, the platform is useful for customers. They can analyse if the code quality requirements are fulfilled and set KPIs for SLA.

Another advantage of the code quality management platform is the quantitative value. Quality has many different dimensions. Seven of them are of the highest importance. These are the technical debts based on the described metrics. With the code quality management platform, the team can cover them and assure high-level application quality.

Benefits of the code quality management platform

Code quality

High level of code quality is the first benefit that you get. Due to automated analysis and code reporting system, the development team gets comprehensible reviews of the system state. This allows them to perform on-time enforcement of coding standards. Along with that, code quality management platform integrated into continuous integration workflow ensures higher quality and healthier CI builds.

The platform serves as a centralised quality metrics repository. It helps quickly detect a lot of errors on the coding stage, which significantly reduces the cost of development of the whole project.

Team proficiency

Another benefit is increased team proficiency. The tech team gets perfectly familiar with the code base. Along with that, the platform is an additional disciplinary option. Regular code analysis stimulates the team to carefully check the actions and control the workflow.

In the nutshell, code quality management platform provides a company not only with the high-quality software system but also makes the team to carefully follow best practices and implement them into the process. Due to the platform, all the members are aware of the code state, bottlenecks and improvements. The platform provides the company with a great opportunity to deliver a well-developed and carefully checked software system to the market.

Written from press release by Leah Alger

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