Java Static Analysis And Custom Bug Detectors

An anonymous reader writes "Java static analysis and custom bug detectors can be a very cost-effective way to improve software quality. By creating a detector for a known bug pattern, we can search for that bug pattern not only in the current code base for a specific project, but in any project, current or future. This article looks at how static analysis tools can change the way you manage software quality."

Comments

What a strange thing from IBM

[roman_mir]

One would think that out of all people, IBM staff would be familiar with the ATM or the Halting Problem. I think that the bugs that are really important to find, are those that are not feasible to find with automated tools, and the bugs that this article is talking about are the simples ones.

Also wouldn't this 'static bug detection' be unnecessary if Java was a strong typed language? The idea of casting is of-course a powerful one, but it is this idea that is probably responsible for the most non-business related bugs in the code. This, and null pointers of-course (a strange name for an exception in a language that uses no pointers.)

In any case, I would rather see people do something than nothing, so I guess bug detectors better than no bug detectors, but in reality I would rather have the developers write good unit-tests.