Why Don't Software Developers Use Static Analysis Tools to Find Bugs?

Re:Why Don't Software Developers Use Static Analysis Tools t... by glogla on Friday June 26, 2015 @04:47AM (#9783048)

I think you're missing each other in terms of what static typing you mean.

Haskell or ML style static typing is very useful, completely changes the way you do things and gives you many guarantees.

C or Java static typing is almost useless with regards to bugs (see null) and serves mostly to annoy you. It has many of extra costs of stronger static typing, but gives you very little of the benefits.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why Don't Software Developers Use Static Analysis Tools t... by taeric on Friday June 26, 2015 @04:56AM (#9783074)

Static analysis is more than just static typing. Notably, it is possible to leverage static analysis for solid gains in reliability against code bases without having to rewrite them to take advantage of a different typing paradigm.

To repeat, you can harden a code base without rewriting it by using static analysis tools. This is not as true with static typing.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why Don't Software Developers Use Static Analysis Tools t... by dllthomas on Friday June 26, 2015 @10:48AM (#9784748)

C static typing can be very useful, if you are able to use it effectively.

There is, of course, a tremendous pile of things it doesn't do well, and a bunch of ways you can make it less useful for yourself, but the last C project I worked on I found it a tremendous help in refactoring compared to the nightmare I would have had without it.

[ Parent | on HN ]