70 Percent Of Software Professionals Say Code Review Essential

PRESS RELEASE

Beverly, Mass. – April 18, 2013 –SmartBear Software, provider of software quality tools used by more than one million developers and testers worldwide, released its official report, “State of Code Review 2013” revealing results of its extensive study on the industry’s peer code review practices, software quality and how the two are related. The code review benchmark survey overwhelmingly captured valuable responses from 683 software professionals and confirmed the importance of code and document review. Over 70 percent of respondents said they do collaborative review in some capacity and those who do review are twice as likely to be highly satisfied with their overall software quality. Over 95 percent of respondents said that conducting code review is important.

“As the leader in code review tools and an advocate for improving quality practices, SmartBear sought answers to a seemingly simple question – does code review matter?” said Betty Zakheim, VP of Product Strategy at SmartBear. “The survey revealed an audience with a passion for development efficiency and quality. From that audience, we confirmed that code review doesn’t only matter, but serves as a critical development practice to the organizations with the greatest level of software quality.”

Conducted by SmartBear’s Practices Research Lab, the “State of Code Review 2013” survey also revealed that software professionals do code review for these reasons: 1) to improve software quality, 2) for knowledge sharing and 3) for maintainability. Since the 40-question survey not only had a large number of respondents but also covered a breadth of topics, this is the first installment of SmartBear’s research series.

“The report contains many interesting statistics including the fact that more gaming developers reported using a tool for code review than medical device developers,” said Lorinda Brandon, Director, Strategy at SmartBear. “Further, organizations that do code review are far more likely to meet development compliance milestones and mandates all the time or very often as opposed to those who do not do code review. We expect the report will be useful for organizations that want to measure their code review practices against the industry benchmark.”

The research series provides code review and software quality performance benchmarks for participants in various industries, roles, organization sizes and development practices. It details what the most successful organizations are doing differently to get ahead, specific best practices that can be applied to improve software quality, code review practices in Agile shops and the benefits of code review.

SmartBear reviewed the results and findings of the survey in a webinar yesterday. The webinar recording and official report are available at: http://www2.smartbear.com/State-of-Code-Review-2013-Report.html.

About SmartBear Software More than one million developers, testers and operations professionals use SmartBear tools to ensure the quality and performance of their APIs, desktop, mobile, Web and cloud-based applications. With five million downloads and counting, SmartBear products are affordable, easy-to-use and ready for deployment. Free tools and plug-ins are also available for download on the website. Learn more about SmartBear, the company’s award-winning tools or join the active user community at http://www.smartbear.com, on Facebook or follow us on Twitter @smartbear or Google+.