Walkmod: Open-source tool to automatically apply code conventions

http://walkmod.com

by walkmod • 11 years ago

33 26 11 years ago

walkmod.com

srgpqt• 11 years ago

Weird name. See also:

http://astyle.sourceforge.net/

walkmod6• 11 years ago

Walkmod also allows (for Java) to work with the syntanctic and semantic information. So, for example it can remove unused elements (e.g variables).

sancha_• 11 years ago

What happens with the private method and the sysout in your example?

lowmagnet• 11 years ago

Not called so delete I guess. What that has to do with style or conventions I don't know.

walkmod6• 11 years ago

Yes, what I wanted to show in this example is that those elements that are "dead" can be removed (there is a plugin for it)

michaelmior2• 11 years ago

I find it frustrating that it's not made clear upfront that Walkmod is only for Java. In fact, it's not really made clear anywhere I can see so I'm not 100% sure that's correct but it seems to be the case.

smoyer• 11 years ago

From their GitHub README [1] (I'm not affiliated):

"Walkmod can support with any programing language if a set of interfaces are implemented as a third party plugin. The first (and current) supported language is Java."

[1] https://github.com/rpau/walkmod-core

walkmod6• 11 years ago

Exactly, Walkmod acts as a framework for language transformations, but we have started with Java

michaelmior2• 11 years ago

Thanks for that! I didn't see a note anywhere on the website. It's nice to have some clarification :)

hadeharian• 11 years ago

Every problem in computer science can be solved by another level of indirection. Genius! Genius! Genius!

_ZeD_• 11 years ago

umm... but eclipse already do this...

malka• 11 years ago

Yes, but this could be used as a hook after a push on the git, so that code would always follow a certain convention, whatever editor the developper that pushed used.

walkmod6• 11 years ago

Exactly :-) Moreover, it is useful for open source projects where developers use different editors

daskills225• 11 years ago

I like tools like this, but why not just write good code in the first place and make people fix code they write poorly?

Quequau• 11 years ago

If that actually worked it would already be happening... but honestly it isn't.

untog• 11 years ago

I think we're long overdue a tool like this (maybe it already exists?) that will reformat code. I have been so bored beyond tedium about endless debates over tabs or spaces, 2 spaces or 4 spaces, semi-colons or no semi-colons, etc. etc. ad nauseum.

Let users check out a repo formatted using whatever indentation they like, then commit back in a standardised format. Then we can all stop talking about this utter nonsense and do some real work.

evolve2k• 11 years ago

Thoughtbot offer a tool called HoundCI that does this for JS, ruby, coffeescript and SASS (SCSS). They charge $12/month for private repos and it's free for open source.

It's designed to check your github pull requests. Haven't used it but looks pretty nice. They provide style guides for each language that your free to customize.

https://houndci.com

kyled• 11 years ago

Php-cs-fixer is another example. It does some ridiculous changes though, such as change $i++ to ++$i.

Joky• 11 years ago

For C/C++/ObjC developers, `clang-format` is already a must. I have `git clang-format` as a pre-commit hook.

bunderbunder• 11 years ago

I'm a bit skittish about tools like this.

We started using one for C# a while back, and discovered a couple key problems with it. First and foremost, sometimes its edits were not safe to do in the context - either that commented code really was important to keep around for some specific reason (e.g., it serves an explanatory purpose), or sometimes the changes were not truly behavior-neutral and would therefore introduce subtle bugs.

In light of that, I'm moving away from thinking that using tools like this as a sort of spray-on tan for cleaning up code is wise. I've started leaning toward the following approach: First, let sleeping dogs lie. Old messy code is like asbestos; it's most dangerous when you disturb it. Second, if you're going to have to work on the code anyway then that's an appropriate time to clean it up. Even so, proceed with caution: Make sure you understand the code and it's got good test coverage so you can visually and empirically verify that the cleanup isn't doing any damage.

markbnj• 11 years ago

> In light of that, I'm moving away from thinking that using tools like this as a sort of spray-on tan for cleaning up code is unwise.

Great metaphor, and I agree.

walkmod6• 11 years ago

It is a respectable point of view, but I think that automatize some boring tasks to correct inside the code is a good idea because let you work on other more interesting tasks.

In fact, most of us use some automatic ways to correct and enrich code with IDEs. Is it also incorrect? In fact, what we are trying to solve are the following situations:

a) In a context where there are a lot of developers and you have worked hard into improve the code style and someone else pushed code that again violates your "implicit" code style. Do you need to correct these bad practices over and over again?

b) There are some boring tasks that punctually appear like "refactoring" when deprecated methods appear or developers need to upgrade one external library version (eg. one critical bug appears).

Anyway, thank you for your opinion :-)

jellekralt• 11 years ago

I prefer to use a tool that gives you feedback on your code, rather than to correct your code. When you get feedback, you learn and (hopefully), you'll improve your style while you write your code. When it is automatically corrected for you, you don't necessarily learn anything from it.

Walkmod: Open-source tool to automatically apply code conventions

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