Code quality and analysis tools for C#? How do you analyze your code?

Question

I am a big NDepend fan and so I read quite a bit from Patrick Smacchia. I was reading a post of his this morning regarding "Where do developers care for Software Quality" in which he looks at the NDepends site log files in Google Analytics to see where people come from to have a look at NDepend. The results are semi-interesting. However it made me want to ask another set of related questions:

1. How many people out there use NDepend and how?
2. How many people out there use something other than NDepend for their .net analysis and what is it?
3. And of course - how many people out there don't use code analysis tools at all, have never heard of the subject, and don't really care?

Answer 1

I quite like StyleCop.

Answer 2

Well I use FXcop, or rather the bits built into Visual Studio. I've also used nDepend, but find its default rules can be horribly wrong and at odds with the .NET Framework and StyleCop guidelines (m_ for member variables? Oh please) Of course StyleCop is not a static code analyser, and there's an argument that style is not an indication of code quality.

Then there's CAT.NET which is rather specialised and looks for security bugs.

Answer 3

The Bauhaus tool we sell supports .NET analysis.

In my own experience use of static analysis has a low uptake among developers. Those that do use it primarily use it for bug checking - in contrast to the 'architectural analysis' provided by Bauhaus and to a lesser extent by NDepend and similar tools.

Mark

Answer 4

Semantic Designs offers a variety of tools for C#:

• Metrics
• Clone Detection
• Test Coverage
• Smart Differencer