Andy Butland

I was recently asked to review the use of Stylecop as part of our standard procedures for ASP.Net projects. I'd not used it before, but was fairly happy to consider doing so as code styling has always been one of my pedantic points when reviewing code (including my own!). Have to admit I was less keen once I'd installed it and found it complaining with around several hundred warnings - on a single, not that complex, and - I'd thought - beautifully coded class library. Having uninstalled it, calmed down a bit a couple of weeks later, reinstalled it, and put aside an afternoon to work through one particular solution... came to the conclusion it did have quite a lot of value. Although no individual change was of any great significance, the code certainly felt better once the refactoring effort had been completed - and we'd expect over time that any best practices it enforced we weren't adhering too, would become normal coding style. So our plan is to use it on...