Bye-bye, build audits; hello, on-the-fly debug

Statistics from analysts much smarter than us report that up to 70 percent of design time is consumed in writing, debugging, debugging, and debugging software. You get the idea. So any kind of tool that contracts this iterative process – especially if it can help during the coding part of the process – might be a real money saver. We don’t care if you’re designing VME systems or coding the next PS3 game. The automated source code analysis tool called Insight from Klocwork specifically targets mission-critical systems, making it perfect for VME/VXS/VPX board-based designs. Of particular importance is that this desktop tool is intended for use by the developer during local build, instead of providing an after-the-fact audit build report. Some of the tricks in Insight have spawned patents, including certain static analysis techniques and system-level collaboration to track bug fixes. The list of features is too numerous to describe here, but highlights include: identification and analysis of critical and security bugs (handy in mission-critical systems); IDE-based code analysis (no need to exit your favorite tool); detailed software architecture visualization; user-defined style or path analysis checkers; bug tracking and reporting – locally or team-based. We are impressed with the potential of Klocwork’s Insight. (Tell us if you have any experience with this tool. We’d love to hear from you at [email protected].)