Checkstyle vs. PMD

Question

We are introducing static analysis tools into the build system for our Java product. We are using Maven2 so Checkstyle and PMD integration come for free. However it looks li

Answer 1

I find Checkstyle and PMD are best for enforcing style issues and simple obvious coding bugs. Although I've found that I like using Eclipse and all the warnings it provides better for that purpose. We enforce stuff by using shared preferences and marking them as actual errors. That way, they never get checked in in the first place.

What I would strongly and enthusiastically recommend is using FindBugs. Because it works at the bytecode level it can check things that are impossible at the source level. While it spits out its fair share of junks, it has found many actual and important bugs in our code.