Code Analysis with Dan Silivestru and Gord Tanner

“JavaScript as a language is evolving year over year with new implementations and new language features, and we need to make sure we stay on top of those.”

Code analysis tools can help a developer understand code. One tool for code analysis is bitHound, which provides code and dependency analysis for NodeJS applications. On today’s episode, we discuss how to use a code analysis tool–and we also talk about how to build one, by breaking down the distributed architecture of bitHound’s backend.

Questions

• What is code analysis?
• Why does JavaScript need specific attention with regards to quality of code?
• Why is dependency analysis so important in Node applications?
• What are the challenges associated with building bitHound?
• Can you describe how you designed your master-slave architecture?
• Do you plan to expand your product to other languages besides JavaScript?
• What are your thoughts on the build vs buy debate?

Links

• Linting
• bitHound
• Software brittleness
• Dependence analysis
• Deadlocks
• Vagrant
• Dan on Twitter
• Gord on Twitter
  

Pranay