SQALE has now been public for one year. This year allows us to collect precious feedback from users from very different organizations and contexts. There is one issue that came back regularly; this is the criticality, severeness…of violations. Currently the non-conformities are weighted by their remediation cost. A critical violation (like an uninitialized variable) may weight less than an undocumented API. Even if most people will consider it more critical.
In an ideal world, where projects have the time to fix all the violations, the only good and helpful question is: How much to fix all of them? That is exactly what the SQALE Quality Index tells (SQI = Technical Debt). Based on such measure, the development team can update its planning and achieve the functional and quality goals of its project.
But, in many cases, especially with legacy code, the budget is not available for paying off all the accumulated debt. Then, other dimensions, points of view are needed to make the best compromise.
Following brainstormings, discussions with users, partners and colleagues, we end up with a new concept, a new index and a new indicator.
A new version of the SQALE Method Definition Document is under final review. Stay tuned!
