TechDebt 1.1 is online, with a brand new interface

At least, the latest version of TechDebt’s dashboard is online. Six month after the launch, TechDebt 1.1 comes with a brand new interface, deep focus on technical debt and software quality measures, technology benchmark and metrics history. Let’s see what’s new…

What’s new on TechDebt.org

• A brand new interface

  We have revised and improved the interface. Jquery UI has been implemented to enhance user experience (it was inevitable, since TechDebt now processes a huge quantity of data !), while the Highcharts graphic library is used to visualize data.

  

• Focus on Technical Debt

  A dedicated tab focuses on Technical Debt and provides more accurate data:

  - Total remediation time and cost
  - Technical debt density (how many remediation hours are needed for a thousand lines of code).
  - Debt density comparison between programming languages.
  - Remediation cost by programming language and violation criticity (ie: Blocker violations generate the highest remediation cost in ABAP, C#, C++, Java, Javascript and PHP).
  - List of code violations that generate remediation cost.

  

• Data on Programming Rules & Tools

  A dedicated tab displays information about violations of activated programming rules:
  - Violation density for each language (ie: total violations found in Java / total lines of Java * 1000).
  - List of tools used to find violations (ie: the well-known FindBugs, PMD, Checkstyle, but also Gendarme, Stylecop, Rats, Vera++, PHP CodeSniffer, etc.).
  - Quality domains of violations (ie: maintainability, security, reliability, etc.).
  - The whole list of rules that are used for each language

  

• Debt Write-Off Estimates

  A dedicated tab displays data on potential saving on Technical Debt through Scertify™ automated code refactoring capabilities:
  - Saving rate, time and money
  - Refactoring automation opportunities by violation criticity and quality domain (ie: Scertify™ could save 25K days on critical violations, 5K days on efficiency-related violations)
  - The list of refactorable rules

  

• Metrics History

  TechDebt’s data is now stored into a MySQL database, that allows to show trends and to view metrics history.

  

What’s coming next…

• Contextual Benchmark

  Since Scertify™ Refactoring Assessment 1.2 has been released, our repository is now able to anonymously collect contextual information on tracked projects. This extra information (ie: application type & classification, business sector, firm size, etc.) will be used to provide users with new benchmark dashboards. Below some examples:
  -  Is Technical Debt lower for Open Source projects than for In-House or Outsourced applications?
  - Quality Metrics comparison between frameworks written in Java
  - What business sector cares the most about technical debt of development projects during the last 6 months?

• Metrics Distribution & Technology Filtering

  Distribution of projects metrics will be back in the next version. Also, you will be able to filter these metrics by technology.

• Get Metrics by E-mail

  Some users would like to get latest values of each metric by e-mail. In the next version, you will be able to get information through e-mail daily, weekly or monthly subscription.

   

Michael MULLER (See other posts)

+10 years experienced Marketing & Communication Manager, specialized in Technology & Innovating companies. Marketing Manager at Tocea. Executive editor at http://dsisionnel.com, a french IT magazine. Creator of http://d8p.it, a cool url shortener. Dad of 2 kids.