Worried about bad code at large? Call FxCop!
I have been told that both Steve Ballmer's keynote featuring VS 2005 Team System and the comprehensive DEV200 break-out session, featuring several people in our unit on the stage representing the different software development roles we find in most software-houses (or the different hats that a single supernatural professional sometimes is commended to wear throughout another exciting day in software development) have been a huge success! I wish I could have been in San Diego for that one [I'm enjoying the world-famous blue skies and shining sun of Redmond, here in our headquarters :-)].
Now, let's talk about code analysis. I'd like to share a bit more about FxCop – one of the tools our team is integrating into VS 2005 Team System. Many of you already know it, but even then you might benefit from reading John Robbins' Bugslayer column on this code analysis tool. John is well known as the author of Debugging Applications for Microsoft .NET and Microsoft Windows, which I proudly have in my own bookshelf. Please note that his column precedes the Visual Studio 2005 Team System, and the tool, as shown in Bugslayer, is not seamlessly integrated with the IDE or the software development life-cycle yet. That is, nonetheless, a great source of information about code analysis and the benefits you can leverage by using FxCop within your team.
-- Roberto Santos
