Taking a step further toward enhancing our software development standards, Net Solutions has now attained Level 3 in Institute for Software Quality’s (IFSQ) standards. IFSQ is an association that sets high standards to define the quality of the Code.

IFSQ was established in 2005 by a group of professionals working in the field of software development.

The Institute has three levels and we at Net Solutions adhere to IFSQ Level-3 and SonarQube under the Continuous Integration (CI)/ Continuous Delivery (CD) process. All IFSQ standards followed using CI auto processing and manually during the code review and project auditing. The level 3 standard represents best practice in the current industry.

IFSQ has examined and updated software quality and they have established “Defect Indicators” which give strong indications that the code is erroneous, hard to debug, and expensive to maintain.

About IFSQ

IFSQ’s objective is to produce, publish, and promote material that will help spread the practice of Code Inspection among development teams and their management worldwide. Studies show that code inspection is remarkably cost-effective when compared to other ways of determining defects.

The IFSQ Level-3 standard combines a vast list of defect indicators, including indicators from Level 1 and Level 2. Further, this set of indicators are put together in the form of a checklist for code walkthroughs for program source code analysis.

Benefits of IFSQ

The prime benefits of code inspection, as defined by IFSQ, include:

1.Code Inspection Ensures ROI

Software code inspection ensures short-term as well as long-term return on investment (ROI). Research proves that code inspection is over 20 times more effective than simple testing.

2. Code Inspection Powers Up Testing Strategies

It is more cost-efficient and effective in identifying defects. A combination of code inspection and testing is the perfect answer to defect-identification issues.

3. Code Inspection Boosts Productivity

Using code inspection, developers can independently identify bugs, without having to wait for the testers to do it or the code review exercise. This also helps in multi-layered testing of the software.

4. Code Inspection Makes Testing Cheaper

Software code inspection identifies defect indicators from day one, making it more cost-effective than functional and system testing.

5. Code Inspection Increases Agility

Code inspection ensures that the software is more receptive to modifications and changes.  This also helps enhance the scalability of the software so that you can implement changes in a uniform and consistent manner.

IFSQ’s Defect Indicators

Using extensive analysis of research papers and adding experience in performing code inspections, peer reviews, and walkthroughs, IFSQ has identified the following categories of defect indicator:

• Work In Progress (WIP): There are clear indications that the program is not yet finished
• Structured Programming (SP): There are clear indications that part of the program is too complex.
• Single Point of Maintenance (SPM): Values have been hard-coded into the program, or pieces of code have been duplicated at various places.
• Defensive Programming (DP): There are indications that the program does not defend itself against inconsistent data or subsystem failures.
• Causes for Concern (CFCs): There are concerns about the completeness, correctness and/or maintainability of the program.

A Glimpse At Implementation of IFSQ Level-3 Standards At Net Solutions

The majority of technologies we use at Net Solutions we carry out the code inspection automatically using SonarQube. Code inspection on the remaining technologies is done during unit testing or code review/audit.

Automatic Code Inspection: Using SonarQube.

Manual Code Inspection: Done during unit testing or code review/audit.

Routine too long lines: Routine/method should not be written too long as it becomes difficult for programmers to understand the lengthy code. Better to break long routines into smaller chunks of code.

Unexpected state not trapped: All exceptions in the code should be handled properly.

Unused Variables: Unused variables should be removed.

Information Exposed: Sensitive information should not be exposed in the code.

TODO: TODO tags represent an action that needs to be taken wherever TODO is mentioned.

Disabled Code: All commented code should be removed from the production server.

Empty Statement Block: Every block should be meaningful; all empty block statements should be removed.

Conclusion

Code inspection not only enhances software quality but also speeds up delivery and helps bring down operational costs. At Net Solutions, most of the code inspection is automated. We believe in complying with the best industry practices for coding to deliver the very best to our customers.

If you are looking for any help on building any digital solution for a better customer or employee engagement, please contact us at [email protected].