Finding bugs the easy way

eBay uses its own version of FindBugs ( a static analysis tool) to run a check before any of its code goes LTS ( Live to site). This has been made a a part of eBay's business unit project lifecycle itself. Recently I moved into a team that owns some of eBay's internal tools related to build and release of its code. As these don't affect live ebay code directly, much of it has bypassed strict coding guidelines that the rest of ebay follows as their mantra of living.

Yesterday I ran eBay's own version of FindBugs on one of these tools and came up with a bunch of findings! Just studying the potential bugs reported could make you a great programmer ;)

Did you know that a simple s.o.p in your java code could bring down your app server? Or for that matter, an e.printStackTrace() at the wrong place? You can even integrate FindBugs with your ant build. For more info check out the findbugs website! Sometimes you may want to ignore certain types of bugs. You can make in eclipse to filter out these.