The Cost of Ignoring Static Code Analysis

Within the software development community, there’s no denying the importance of unit testing. We all understand the need to isolate code for testing and quality assurance; it’s an unquestionable necessity in writing code. But how can we be sure that the code we deploy is as good as it can possibly be? The answer is: static code analysis.

Too often, businesses choose not to prioritize static analysis — which ultimately impacts the quality of their software. The truth is that we can’t afford to sidestep this part of the CI/CD development pipeline if we want to create the best possible software that helps a business compete and win in their market.

To ignore static analysis is to make a major mistake. Here’s why.

Companies Need a Combination of Testing

Businesses should employ both static analysis and unit testing to ensure the code’s readiness for development. However, developers don’t often pay the same attention to both practices, and ignoring the former means that buggy, costly code can likely fall through the cracks.

Here’s the thing. Dynamic analysis, which works at runtime, serves a different purpose than static analysis, which looks at the internal structure of an application and works on a variety of different code languages. The same can’t be said for dynamic testing. Short-sightedly, many developers view static analysis as a method to find bugs and problematic patterns without having to compile code.

And it’s great for that! But it’s not everything. Developers must understand why a part of their code may be an issue and how they can come up with a better solution, or they aren’t really doing their job. Static analysis, often perceived as overly complex to justify the effort, makes a huge difference here. In reality, static analysis isn’t all that complicated now that we have the right tools that help do it correctly.

Challenges With Unit Testing

Unit testing can’t cover every problem or bug. It’s simply not a failsafe, which leads to bigger issues in software down the line. Developers tend to forget that static analysis is a way to cover themselves. And with developer burnout reaching a critical point, this cannot be underestimated, particularly as software becomes more business-critical.

Here’s where static analysis kicks in. This kind of testing enables a developer to cover all code execution paths and help them best understand where their code has issues, and why those issues exist.

Static analysis tools possess a level of accuracy that manual source code review cannot surpass. Every developer knows that to err is to just be human, but the automated tools associated with static analysis help with that problem in the code creation process.

Static Analysis Isn’t a Perfect Substitute for Human Verification

Static analysis isn’t perfect, but it does eliminate a lot of problems that unit testing can’t fix. It’s a cog in the machine that makes software great. But, of course, there are drawbacks.

Automated tools can’t do it all. Everyone knows that. Automated tools can’t figure out developer intent or context; they’re no replacement for the humans behind the code. These tools also can’t determine the intent behind a mistake, which renders them imperfect. Coders will grasp the context, which ultimately results in a quality product.

Automated static analysis can also sometimes lead to false negatives or positives, as all it can do is report the error. At this point, a developer can only report the issue without truly fixing it. This can lead to indeterminate outcomes, causing delays in the development process, or erroneously reporting defects that don’t exist. Sometimes, they also fail to find a problem. Developers can’t eliminate any code-checking practice. 

Developers always need to double-check their work and their peers’ work. As we become more dependent upon automated tools, this becomes even more critical; there’s just no replacement for human cognition. While these tools can help us accelerate processes and get work done more quickly, and easily, they’re not a failsafe. Human developers will always hold a vital role in the software development process.

Here’s the Fix

Simply put, the best way for developers to guarantee they are producing top-quality code is by implementing both unit testing and static code analysis. It’s just the truth. Without both processes in place in the software development lifecycle, developers are risking the quality of their code.

I can think of a case personally where incorporating static analysis alongside unit testing saved a project. It was about encrypting passwords for a login screen. This functionality could pass a unit test — the user enters their username and password, which allows them to log in. But that didn’t mean that it was necessarily secure. The algorithm that encrypts or hashes the password could’ve been compromised. So, even though the functionality worked — it wasn’t secure. Static analysis catches something like that when unit testing can’t.

The great thing about static analysis is that it can detect problems before you’re even able to test software in real time. As developers, we aspire to write clean code, code that is consistent, intentional, adaptable, and responsible. Addressing mistakes or identifying errors early in the coding development process leads to a higher-quality end result in the long term, ultimately saving time by resolving issues upfront.

Incorporating both static analysis and unit testing ensures that your software is top-quality with any issues being addressed earlier on in the CI/CD pipeline. At a time when companies are wasting hundreds of trillions of dollars annually on fixing bad code, prioritizing a combination of analysis and testing is necessary.