
Coala – Code Analysis Application - nikolay
http://coala-analyzer.org/
======
sanketdasgupta
Regarding the community of this project, it is one of the best I have seen.
The project management and review processes are top quality. I have been
contributing to this project for a more than a month now, and it has been a
great ride so far!

If any of you are looking for a top-notch repository to contribute to, drop in
at our gitter channel[0] and say hi!

[0] [https://gitter.im/coala-analyzer/coala](https://gitter.im/coala-
analyzer/coala)

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kevindeasis
So it's language agnostic.

Can anyone tell me the rocket science behind this?

How would a library know if a code and its libraries are performing software
development/engineering best practices?

What types of algorithms do you use and are there other libraries that already
does this that is language agnostic?

~~~
michaelmior
I think you're expecting it to be something more exciting than it is (I was
too at first.) It's just a front end for static analysis tools. Coala doesn't
do any analysis on its own. Everything is delegated to other tools. It just
provides a way to pass configuration in and to parse the output so you know
what lines in the source file have problems.

Code Climate does something similar with their Engines[0] specification.
Personally I like how they make use of Docker containers to perform the
analysis. It is perhaps a bit heavyweight for simple analyses but it makes it
really easy to install different language runtimes and tools.

[0] [https://github.com/codeclimate/spec](https://github.com/codeclimate/spec)

~~~
sils
Oh btw. coala allows automatic fixes for source code, most tools like code
climate are usually reporting only and can be more annoying than helpful.

~~~
michaelmior
Agreed that such tools can be annoying without the proper configuration. But I
also don't really want anything automatically fixing my source code. That's a
personal preference though.

~~~
sils
coala always leaves you in control, you can tell it to e.g. show a patch
before applying. If you explicitly configure it you can set it to
automatically apply patches that are coming from certain analysis routines.

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kabouseng
I would work on your video. Watching the developer make spelling mistakes,
then backspacing and uneven text input rate etc is somewhat painful.

~~~
sils
Thanks, I've filed an issue at [https://github.com/coala-
analyzer/website/issues/27](https://github.com/coala-
analyzer/website/issues/27) . We'll definitely look at that. You probably know
how manpower in open source projects with no commercial backing behaves :)

~~~
kabouseng
Absolutely and I didn't want it to be perceived as negative.

~~~
sils
Your comment? We love constructive feedback, thanks a lot :)

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an_account_name
Utterly missing from this article is what kind of analysis you can do.

~~~
sils
Thanks, I added a link right on top of [http://coala-
analyzer.org/](http://coala-analyzer.org/) to clarify it a bit. The website
isn't particularly good, we're working on a new one which provides lots of
cool things and better information, probably implemented by a GSoC student.

~~~
xyz198
Great effort with the project.

However, I must say that very critical info for first-time users is still
unavailable or very vaguely documented. For example, I still have no clue what
sort of analysis can be obtained from this page : [https://github.com/coala-
analyzer/coala-bears/wiki/Available...](https://github.com/coala-
analyzer/coala-bears/wiki/Available-bears). I can see a bunch of Bears but
that's your terminology. I would rather prefer a brief summary of the tool's
analysis or atleast a link to the static analyzer which a specific bear wraps
over. For e.g. "AlexBear" \- I honestly have no clue what that or 90% of the
other bears end up doing with my source code.

You have put so much effort in the implementation, please improve
clarity/coverage of documentation.

Also, installation (pip3 install coala-bears) fails on OSX. Any ideas on how
to fix that ? Here is the error message :
[http://pastebin.com/tP3dZsik](http://pastebin.com/tP3dZsik)

Thank you.

~~~
sils
Hey, upgrading pip should solve your issue.

I filed an issue for the missing info at [https://github.com/coala-
analyzer/website/issues/30](https://github.com/coala-
analyzer/website/issues/30) , thank you for your feedback!

~~~
xyz198
Thanks a lot for incorporating the feedback. I have been working on a similar,
internal tool within my company and I have realized the hard way how all
capabilities can go waste if not communicated correctly to the stakeholders
(developers in this case).

I look forward to contributing to coala if I end up incorporating it alongside
my (internal) tool and would like an unimplemented functionality. Good luck.

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galistoca
Cool project, but gotta say that abbreviation feels a bit too forced....think
it deserves more fitting name (no trolling, just thinking it would be easier
to remember if the initials actually mapped to the keywords)

~~~
nikolay
I agree. You don't owe explanation to a brand name (even a weird spelling one)
- especially in the heading. The FAQ can have the origin.

~~~
sils
Good suggestion, I've created a FAQ stub and we're tracking this here if
you're interested in how this goes: [https://github.com/coala-
analyzer/website/issues/22](https://github.com/coala-
analyzer/website/issues/22)

Thanks!

~~~
nikolay
The real estate above the fold is your most important one - use it
responsibly. :)

