Richard Gross, IT archaeologist at My Born Wolf and creator of the open-source visualization tool CodeCharta, shares insights into assessing code quality. He explains how CodeCharta helps identify complexity, track changes, and visualize team contributions. The discussion delves into the nuances of problematic code—sometimes stemming from too many contributors, and at other times just needing refactoring. Gross even introduces the idea of creating physical 3D models of your code, making it easier to focus on improvement and gauge success!
CodeCharta visualizes code complexity and contributions, aiding developers in identifying areas needing refactoring and promoting collaborative solutions.
The importance of evaluating code quality from multiple perspectives is emphasized, as it helps address risks like knowledge silos effectively.
Deep dives
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Legacy Code Modernization Strategies
The conversation transitions to the challenges of modernizing legacy code, where issues of complexity often hinder progress. An important strategy introduced is the use of a code visualization tool, CodeCarta, which allows developers to map their codebase like a city, revealing hotspots of complexity and change. By visually representing different metrics such as cyclomatic complexity and line changes, developers can identify areas that require urgent refactoring. This approach fosters a collaborative dialogue among stakeholders, ensuring critically complex areas are recognized and addressed effectively.
The Role of Metrics in Software Development
The discussion delves into how comprehensive metrics can guide software development and modernization efforts, focusing on the importance of multiple perspectives in evaluating code. CodeCarta facilitates this by enabling teams to visualize not just static metrics, but also historical changes and author contributions, which can expose risks such as knowledge silos. The method encourages a proactive approach to management and improvement, making it vital to consistently measure and respond to the evolving landscape of the codebase. Ultimately, this practice can lead to more maintainable and efficient software systems.
How do you understand the quality of your code? Carl and Richard talk to Richard Gross about his open-source tool called CodeCharta. Richard talks about various ways you can use CodeCharta to understand your codebase - whether it is complexity, number of changes, or number of coders involved - there are many visualization opportunities. This leads to a discussion about what problematic code actually is. Sometimes, too many people work in the same place, and sometimes, there is only one. Some complexity is necessary, and sometimes it's just refactoring. But what tools like CodeCharta provide is a way to focus on potential points of change and then see when the change has been successful - and you can even print a 3D model to have a physical copy of your code!
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