PVS-Studio and GitHub-community: the beginning of friendship
Some time ago it was decided to make the PVS-Studio static code analyzer free for certain categories of developers: students for educational purposes, individual developers and enthusiast teams. Gradually, the number of free users is increasing, but we decided to remind of this possibility, since many developers could miss the relevant news.
So, it all started with the article: How to use PVS-Studio for free .
The first user response was inconsistent. On the one hand, individual developers were happy to use the analyzer for free, but on the other hand, we faced dissatisfaction with the required comments in the code. Initially, it was not a secret that the proposed comments are not suitable for everyone, in fact, this is their meaning. As mentioned earlier in the news notes, if none of the proposed free use options suits you, then we suggest discussing the issue of license purchase with us.
Now we decided to observe how the free version of PVS-Studio will be distributed to the GitHub community. To do this, we turned to developers with GitHub , who are already using the free version of our analyzer. Perhaps, after reading a few reviews, some developers will also want to start using the analyzer when developing their projects.
')
As you can see in the picture, there are not many people using PVS-Studio on GitHub yet. But gradually their number is growing. Let's listen to the opinions of some of these users.
Below are some developer reviews from GitHub that use the free version of PVS-Studio.
Evgenii Lepikhin ( TrafficProcessor project) :
I write quite a bit in c ++ and even less use code analyzers (under Linux it’s generally difficult with them). Your compared to lint took off easily, without any problems was bolted to the IDE. There is little I can say about the quality of the analyzer itself, there is little experience. But it works, not buggy, and more, it seems, nothing is needed.
Alexey Schadin ( NppKate project) :
In general, I am satisfied with the work of the static analyzer, many thanks to the PVS-Studio team for their work. But unfortunately my project is very small, and before that I used the analysis that makes MS Visual Stiduo 2015 CE, so the list of potentially problematic places was very short (less than 10 positions). I liked the interface, the description of the warning immediately explains how to fix the problem. Thanks for letting you make OpenSource products better! In other OpenSource projects, I will also use your analyzer, if the company's policy does not change.
Here we can assure Alexey and other developers that the company's policy will not change in the near future. The free version of PVS-Studio is a long-term project.
Sergey Zheygurov ( ToolsGenGkode project):
I am very pleased with your program, especially the opportunity to use without having to buy, because C # programming is just a hobby, and buying your program is not advisable, but the ability to find errors with my lack of experience in C # is very useful for me. I am very pleased that your company was able to provide the opportunity to use your software product! :-)
Alibek Omarov ( cs16-client project) :
I've been following PVS-Studio for a long time, participated in your beta test of the analyzer under Linux. "Satisfied, like an elephant." The tool performs its work in the form of searching for some contextual errors and typos perfectly well. The free license saved me a lot, as I am an individual developer and moreover, for the time being, an amateur.
Alexey Lesovsky ( pgcenter project) :
Yes, I use PVS-Studio in my project, since I am not a professional developer, but more a system administrator, so I tend to make a lot of implicit errors in programming. PVS-Studio in this regard points me to them, and I try to correct them, again with the help of the recommendations that are posted on your website. My opinion is that PVS-Studio is a very useful product that allows you to eliminate errors in the code and contributes to the development of the developer himself. It is easy to use PVS-Studio, setting up, analyzing and “decoding” error messages is not difficult.
But from our side it would be dishonest to talk only about positive reviews. We calmly accept constructive criticism, so I would like to share with readers another review.
Vitaly Grigoriev - Network Application Security Specialist writes:
I have been using your static analyzer for several years now, and very often I wrote you about the bugs and inaccuracies I found.
It seems to me that you have chosen a deliberately wrong way as to how you provide free use of your analyzer.
Your approach has many flaws, for example, the fact that it all rests on an honest word and on a license agreement. In the Russian conditions - it is useless.
Another of the downsides is that you can’t verify that the project is open-source, etc.
And also, since you want to popularize your analyzer among programmers, how will you attract foreign programmers if for them all the “ads” are hidden inside the code? You need to promote your analyzer among large projects on Git, etc., but large projects, even if they are absolutely free, they will not insert something extra into their files ...
I advise you to pay attention to how Coverity Scan does it, where they have their own website for free use and full integration with various repositories ... Integration with Travis-CI, etc. And in addition to this, there is also an “advertisement” in the form of a tag in the README that everyone sees. This approach eliminates all the above disadvantages. Therefore, Covery is used in almost every second Git project. Although, I think you have already considered this option, for some reasons you did not do it. Probably, either due to the fact that your action is temporary, or because of the costs of developing a new site ...
Another of the drawbacks, I want to note that you are writing too long and incomplete manuals for any configuration (for example, integration into the Cmake build system in Linux, etc.). They have very little use-cases and practical component. The number of different projects is large and they are all collected in different ways, and examples are given literally for 1-2 of the easiest case'ov ...
If you made your extension for CLion, and not through other approaches, this would be very useful. Almost all companies that develop under Linux have switched to CLion, and the number of people who use “Vim and analogues” is now drastically reduced ... In general, I recommend looking at the products of JetBrains, or rather TeamCity and YouTrack. These products use almost ALL large and medium-sized companies, and the integration of PVS-Studio there is a very correct Business model.
Thank you very much Vitaly for such a detailed review, but still, some points worth commenting on here:
I would like to say thanks to all the developers who responded and left us their feedback. It was nice to talk and get a positive charge from them.
In general, we were pleased with the feedback received. Despite a bit of a negative reaction at the beginning, the developers got the idea to use the free version of PVS-Studio. We believe that this is the beginning of our friendship with the GitHub community. Join us. We invite everyone to download and try PVS-Studio on your project for free . Let's be friends!
If you have any questions about the installation, integration and use of PVS-Studio, you can contact us . We always try to help developers in the fight against bugs!
If you want to share this article with an English-speaking audience, then please use the link to the translation: Sofya Fateeva. PVS-Studio and GitHub community: let the friendship begin
So, it all started with the article: How to use PVS-Studio for free .
The first user response was inconsistent. On the one hand, individual developers were happy to use the analyzer for free, but on the other hand, we faced dissatisfaction with the required comments in the code. Initially, it was not a secret that the proposed comments are not suitable for everyone, in fact, this is their meaning. As mentioned earlier in the news notes, if none of the proposed free use options suits you, then we suggest discussing the issue of license purchase with us.
Now we decided to observe how the free version of PVS-Studio will be distributed to the GitHub community. To do this, we turned to developers with GitHub , who are already using the free version of our analyzer. Perhaps, after reading a few reviews, some developers will also want to start using the analyzer when developing their projects.
')
As you can see in the picture, there are not many people using PVS-Studio on GitHub yet. But gradually their number is growing. Let's listen to the opinions of some of these users.
What they say about us
Below are some developer reviews from GitHub that use the free version of PVS-Studio.
Evgenii Lepikhin ( TrafficProcessor project) :
I write quite a bit in c ++ and even less use code analyzers (under Linux it’s generally difficult with them). Your compared to lint took off easily, without any problems was bolted to the IDE. There is little I can say about the quality of the analyzer itself, there is little experience. But it works, not buggy, and more, it seems, nothing is needed.
Alexey Schadin ( NppKate project) :
In general, I am satisfied with the work of the static analyzer, many thanks to the PVS-Studio team for their work. But unfortunately my project is very small, and before that I used the analysis that makes MS Visual Stiduo 2015 CE, so the list of potentially problematic places was very short (less than 10 positions). I liked the interface, the description of the warning immediately explains how to fix the problem. Thanks for letting you make OpenSource products better! In other OpenSource projects, I will also use your analyzer, if the company's policy does not change.
Here we can assure Alexey and other developers that the company's policy will not change in the near future. The free version of PVS-Studio is a long-term project.
Sergey Zheygurov ( ToolsGenGkode project):
I am very pleased with your program, especially the opportunity to use without having to buy, because C # programming is just a hobby, and buying your program is not advisable, but the ability to find errors with my lack of experience in C # is very useful for me. I am very pleased that your company was able to provide the opportunity to use your software product! :-)
Alibek Omarov ( cs16-client project) :
I've been following PVS-Studio for a long time, participated in your beta test of the analyzer under Linux. "Satisfied, like an elephant." The tool performs its work in the form of searching for some contextual errors and typos perfectly well. The free license saved me a lot, as I am an individual developer and moreover, for the time being, an amateur.
Alexey Lesovsky ( pgcenter project) :
Yes, I use PVS-Studio in my project, since I am not a professional developer, but more a system administrator, so I tend to make a lot of implicit errors in programming. PVS-Studio in this regard points me to them, and I try to correct them, again with the help of the recommendations that are posted on your website. My opinion is that PVS-Studio is a very useful product that allows you to eliminate errors in the code and contributes to the development of the developer himself. It is easy to use PVS-Studio, setting up, analyzing and “decoding” error messages is not difficult.
But from our side it would be dishonest to talk only about positive reviews. We calmly accept constructive criticism, so I would like to share with readers another review.
Vitaly Grigoriev - Network Application Security Specialist writes:
I have been using your static analyzer for several years now, and very often I wrote you about the bugs and inaccuracies I found.
It seems to me that you have chosen a deliberately wrong way as to how you provide free use of your analyzer.
Your approach has many flaws, for example, the fact that it all rests on an honest word and on a license agreement. In the Russian conditions - it is useless.
Another of the downsides is that you can’t verify that the project is open-source, etc.
And also, since you want to popularize your analyzer among programmers, how will you attract foreign programmers if for them all the “ads” are hidden inside the code? You need to promote your analyzer among large projects on Git, etc., but large projects, even if they are absolutely free, they will not insert something extra into their files ...
I advise you to pay attention to how Coverity Scan does it, where they have their own website for free use and full integration with various repositories ... Integration with Travis-CI, etc. And in addition to this, there is also an “advertisement” in the form of a tag in the README that everyone sees. This approach eliminates all the above disadvantages. Therefore, Covery is used in almost every second Git project. Although, I think you have already considered this option, for some reasons you did not do it. Probably, either due to the fact that your action is temporary, or because of the costs of developing a new site ...
Another of the drawbacks, I want to note that you are writing too long and incomplete manuals for any configuration (for example, integration into the Cmake build system in Linux, etc.). They have very little use-cases and practical component. The number of different projects is large and they are all collected in different ways, and examples are given literally for 1-2 of the easiest case'ov ...
If you made your extension for CLion, and not through other approaches, this would be very useful. Almost all companies that develop under Linux have switched to CLion, and the number of people who use “Vim and analogues” is now drastically reduced ... In general, I recommend looking at the products of JetBrains, or rather TeamCity and YouTrack. These products use almost ALL large and medium-sized companies, and the integration of PVS-Studio there is a very correct Business model.
Thank you very much Vitaly for such a detailed review, but still, some points worth commenting on here:
- The free version of PVS-Studio is not a temporary action, but quite a permanent one. We are pleased to be able to help enthusiastic developers use a commercial product for free.
- With Coverity, we try to take an example in many ways. This company is our authority. However, in the issue of a free license, we went a little different way: the fact is that we want to make the license free for not only Open-Source projects, and there is some advantage for developers. Yes, we will not be able to test the developer for honesty, but self-respecting companies are unlikely to use deceptive methods, and those who will be are definitely not our clients.
- As for CLion. PVS-Studio for Linux appeared quite recently, and we made the integration of the analyzer through the CMake project file (this is how it looks and is configured http://www.viva64.com/ru/m/0036/ ). The possibility of releasing an extension for the IDE is now being studied.
Conclusion
I would like to say thanks to all the developers who responded and left us their feedback. It was nice to talk and get a positive charge from them.
In general, we were pleased with the feedback received. Despite a bit of a negative reaction at the beginning, the developers got the idea to use the free version of PVS-Studio. We believe that this is the beginning of our friendship with the GitHub community. Join us. We invite everyone to download and try PVS-Studio on your project for free . Let's be friends!
If you have any questions about the installation, integration and use of PVS-Studio, you can contact us . We always try to help developers in the fight against bugs!
If you want to share this article with an English-speaking audience, then please use the link to the translation: Sofya Fateeva. PVS-Studio and GitHub community: let the friendship begin
Read the article and have a question?
Often our articles are asked the same questions. We collected answers to them here: Answers to questions from readers of articles about PVS-Studio, version 2015 . Please review the list.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/321582/
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