Improve Your Code with Behavioral Code Analysis: A Review of “Software Design X-Rays”

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(as of May 20,2023 19:56:58 UTC – Details)

Working on a software codebase can sometimes feel like an endless battle with technical debt. But what if you could use behavioral data to identify and prioritize technical debt, as well as uncover surprising dependencies between people and code? “Software Design X-Rays” offers novel insights into the world of code analysis, showing how you can use statistics and data science to uncover problematic code and improve the coordination and efficiency of development teams.

The book stresses that good code design involves social design as well as technical design, and its techniques build on behavioral data that you already have through your version-control system. By using insights from this data, you can prioritize refactoring needs, measure their effect, find implicit dependencies between modules, and create knowledge maps of your system based on actual code contributions.

What makes this book stand out is its detailed case studies, showing how you can use behavioral code analysis to improve your software codebase regardless of the programming language you use. It also discusses how you can use the data gathered to guide organizational decisions objectively.

Overall, “Software Design X-Rays” is a fascinating read for experienced programmers, software architects, and technical managers alike, offering new perspectives and techniques to help you manage technical debt and improve your code.

What You Need:

You don’t need to install any new software to follow along in the book. The case studies rely on well-known open source projects hosted on GitHub, and the authors use CodeScene, a free software analysis tool for open source projects, for the case studies. Alternative tooling options are also discussed where relevant.