Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
pair programming are performed by humans, who are error prone and
have a limited capacity to quickly and successfully conduct endless,
repetitive tasks.
Code reviews, when conducted efficiently, such as through the
venerable Fagan inspection process,
1
can
be impressively effective;
however, they are run by humans, who tend to be emotional. This
means that colleagues may not be able to tell other colleagues when
their code stinks, and people collaborating in a work environment have
the tendency to
subjectively
review one another's work. There is also a
time cost associated with code reviews, even in the most informal of
environments.
Pair programming has also been shown to be effective when
applied correctly. Having another pair of eyes constantly reviewing
code can yield higher quality code; however, organizations practicing
this innovative technique are in the minority. Pairs can also suffer the
same issues of emotion and subjectivity.
The difference between human-based inspection and that done
with a static analysis tool is twofold.
• These tools are incredibly cheap to run often. They only require
human intervention to configure and run once—after that, they
are automated and provide a savings as compared to a person's
hourly rate.
• These tools harness the unflinching and unrelenting objective-
ness of a computer. A computer won't offer compromises like
“Your code looks fine if you say mine looks fine,” and it won't
ask for bio-breaks and personal time if you run an automated
inspection tool every time the version control repository
changes.
These tools are also customizable—organizations can choose the
most relevant rules for their code base and run these rules
every
time
code is checked into the version control repository. These tools
become, in essence, tireless watchers of source code, which is practi-
cally impossible to mimic with human activity.
1. For more information on the Fagan inspection process, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/
