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?
  • PokerChips@programming.dev
    1·
    3 months ago

    Make an open source project for this. I’d love something like this for neovim. Not that I ever have any novel code to leak but I still find it odd that we just invite businesses to just spy on our code.

  • Jayjader@jlai.lu
    0·
    3 months ago

    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)”.

    • YUART@feddit.orgOPEnglish
      0·
      3 months ago

      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

      • entwine@programming.dev
        1·
        3 months ago

        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!