Do code review tools offer auto correction

The automated code review tools are helping coders to find bugs and to identify potential vulnerabilities. These tools usually display warning signs during the code review process to check if the code meets the standards of the company.

An automated code review tool can automatically fix bugs or guides users on how to fix them. We explained why code reviews are important in our research on the topic.

Automated code reviews automate parts of a code review. This is important since code reviews are completed by developers and their managers who make up one of the highest paid groups in a company by area of specialization. Automated code review tools often work integrated with services like Github, Gitlab or Codecommit that host secure Git-based repositories.

It analyzes the code as if compiling it and checks whether it meets the required standards. These standards vary depending on application of the software. Some issues that automated code review tools analyze are:. Some of these software tools allow programmers to configure their own code standards. Some tools go beyond a rules based analysis of the code. Automated reviews save development team time and reduce release time however they are not a comprehensive review.

Ideally, teams should combine manual and automated reviews for efficient and effective software development. For more details on manual code review, please see our article on the topic. The main benefits of the automated code review over manual code review are time efficiency, lack of human error and lack of bias:. On the other hand, relying on just automated code reviews do not guarantee finding all bugs or security defects.

Some kinds of security vulnerabilities are difficult to find automatically, such as authentication problems, access control issues, insecure use of cryptography. Manual code reviews reduce risky high level decisions such as the use of suboptimal architectures. They also support a collaborative culture and peer feedback. While automated code reviews are better than having no code reviews, they are not a replacement for manual code reviews. However, they can make manual code reviews more efficient since they save human reviewers from looking for minor errors such as function naming, spacing or style.

Automated code review is an integral part of modern software development best practices. The most important points to consider when choosing code review tools are:. If you have questions about how automated code reviews can support your tech function, we can help:.

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These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. Right, a SubMain offering. Right is an automated code review tool. It works by checking your source-code against a set of rules? Then, it gives you instant feedback, letting you know how well your code did against the verifications.

For some scenarios, CodeIt. Right even offers automatic fixes, allowing the developer to easily apply the corrections to their code. To learn more about CodeIt.

Right, check out the series of posts we made explaining its rules in great detail. For whatever reason, it seems to me that some people in the software development community are kind of allergic to the idea of employing tools that can greatly aid us in doing our jobs. Which is particularly weird, since, if you think about it, our jobs basically amount to creating different kinds of tools.

Sure, you should try not to be dependent on tools? But if you use them wisely, the right tools can be the boost your software team has been waiting for. But before you go around wisely using the right tools, you must first know what the right tools are.

And not only that, but you should also how to categorize them so you can apply the right tool in the right scenario. And tools are a great help. We also proceeded to cover some of the different types of code review tools by talking about the difference between them. Finally, we talked about three specific code review tools that can make for a great addition to your tool belt. Learn more how CodeIt. Long-time developers benefit as well, because they become aware of the most recent changes in the code base.

We will first inspect the common pitfalls that the reviewee is facing, i. We get tired and frustrated. We need to understand the structure of the code and its underlying patterns. That becomes increasingly harder the larger the merge request gets. Our minds only have a certain capacity and if too many things changed in a single merge request, that capacity might be exceeded.

Reviewing the code then becomes much more exhausting for us and we might miss important problems. Our new feature implementation of lines might drown in lines of refactoring code, making it really hard for the reviewer to see the feature changes in context. We developers like to be perceived as smart — especially by other developers.

Smart is usually associated with elegant and elegant is associated with short, abstract and modern. Overly short code can be more difficult to read. Abstract, generic code can obscure the intent and usually takes more time both to write and understand.

Modern code that uses cutting-edge technology might be fancy, but not the best solution for the problem. When you were writing your code, you might have gone through a complex thinking process, considered all options of abstraction and in the end arrived at the conclusion that the simple, straight-forward and non-reusable option might be the best for the particular use case. All they see is the final result of inelegant code. The only win is that the reviewer might get convinced of your brilliancy at some point.

Everything else is a loss. As a result, we are usually biased towards our own solution. Some requested changes might not really be up for debate as they are objectively a mistake, like a bug that leads to a crash or a simple typo. But for less obvious change requests, we often fight for our own solution — even if that solution is not as good as the one suggested.

Just as a reviewee has pride in their craft, so has the reviewer. It might be conscious or unconscious, but sometimes we just add a comment because we want to impress or to strengthen our position as an experienced developer. This is more likely to happen if the reviewer is senior to the reviewee. The opposite effect can occur as well. After all, if we ask a question in a merge request, it might be interpreted as a weakness. If we do that regularly, we might be judged and perceived as a bad developer.

Our reputation decreases. If we exceed a certain number of comments we add to a merge request as a reviewer, we often start feeling bad about it — because we know: Each additional comment means more work for the reviewee. The more comments we write, the more we fear that we might bother him or her too much. They might perceive our review as an attack if we criticize everything. Consequently, we have a subconscious throttle integrated in our reviewer mind: After a certain threshold has been reached, every comment we add reduces the likeliness of us adding more comments, even if they would be equally or possibly more important than the existing comments from our perspective — another reason for keeping merge requests small.

Depending on the language we use and the fierceness of our comments, the reviewee might feel offended or judged. We might give him or her the impression that we value our own opinion more than theirs. Another typical reviewer behavior is to focus on the least important things. New lines and indentation guide our eyes and help us reading and digesting chunks of code faster.

It is implemented wisely because it is informal and spontaneous. This method has a high probability of missing errors and glitches as most of the time, the reviewer lacks the knowledge of the goal of the task. Immediate review missed to bring out better results as a team would have in their refinement sessions together with tasks discussed upfront. The ad-hoc review usually results in only a developer knowing the goal of the project.

The major problem of this process is forced context-switching. Imagine working on a complex software yourself, and then being called by your junior member for an ad-hoc review. You would have to leave your station immediately to review the code of your co-worker.

Having to leave your work suddenly can create exhaustion and frustration. In meeting based code review, coders complete their work, and a meeting is called. The whole tech team sits, commenting, and attempting to improve the code together.

It is a temporary process as it is highly unlikely to perform constantly considering the amount of time, loss of workforce for the time, decreased efficiency and inability to get the whole team together.

Meeting based code reviews make sense only when the whole team is inexperienced with the code review process. It involves assembling the entire team in a room, sharing ideas and solving problems for a few times. This helps every team member to understand the process much clearer.

With just over half of the companies using this, this process is not adequate as a code quality assurance standard. This process is not done by a team together, at least not on the same screen.

It is also called an asynchronous code review. In this, once the code gets finished, the coder makes it available for others to review. The reviewer will review the code on their screen commenting, or even amending the errors in the codes. Then notifying the coder who on her agenda will improve it. When there are no changes, the code is marked with no comments for improvements and the software gets approved.

Tool based code review eliminates the major problem in the above two processes, direct dependencies. With both coders and reviewers working on their schedule, it also eliminates forced context switching. But just like any other method has its downsides, the tool-based technique has many review loops which take a lot of time just like meeting based processes.