Hey,
I’m exploring the idea of a webpage where you can paste a function (or a block of code) in any programming language, and it outputs a list of specific, actionable refactoring suggestions - things like:
- Unnecessary complexity
- Poor naming conventions
- Duplicated logic
- Violations of language-specific best practices
- Readability issues
The goal is to help developers quickly spot areas for improvement and make their code cleaner, more maintainable, and easier to understand.
Questions for you:
- Would you use such a tool? Why or why not?
- What features would make it important for you? (e.g., integration with GitHub, support for obscure languages, explanations for each suggestion, etc.)
- Are you ready to pay for a tool like this (for example, paying for access to advanced checks or being able to tune checks for your programming style)?
- Are there existing tools you love (or hate) that do something similar?
Are you aware of sonarqube?
It does the complexity and best practices parts of your list, and can be plugged into continuous delivery systems. Jetbrains’ IDEs have a free plugin that will run it locally, and I would be surprised if similar integrations didn’t exist for (neo)vim, vs-code, etc.
It’s pretty decent at explaining why it considers a chunk of code to be problematic, and can even propose quick fixes as if it were an LSP.
You can also flag issues it finds as “intended/deemed non-fixable by the dev(s)”.
I love SonarQube (previously called SonarLint). I/We use it at work in dotnet/C# and web/Blazor projects.
Their free offer is great.
The dotnet and Visual Studio analyzer suggestions are already a great tool. Adding SonarQube on top, and recently I’ve added Roslynator Analyzers as well gives great free tooling, linting, suggestions of various levels, and quick actions to apply.
With the commercial backing they have, SonarQube is very well maintained/developed as well, with regular updates.
I use this at work. It’s actually quite good. Its suggestions aren’t the sort of thing you’d ignore.
It does slow the IDE on large projects though.
Hi, hmm, I think that’s almost the tool I had in mind. So if sonarqube exists, I guess there is no need for another tool in the same area. Thanks for sharing
You’re welcome! I would suggest giving it a try, maybe there’s a feature or functionality you have in mind that sonarqube doesn’t do.
Just because a product exists already doesn’t mean there isn’t opportunity for a competitor! You could try competing on price, maybe offer a more generous free tier which can help you get more sign ups. Maybe make it free for self-hosting, but you make money offering it as a service as most devs probably won’t bother.
Sonarqube proved there’s a market for this type of product already, which is the hardest part!