Hey,

I’m exploring the idea of a webpage where you can paste a function (or a block of code) in any programming language, and it outputs a list of specific, actionable refactoring suggestions - things like:

  • Unnecessary complexity
  • Poor naming conventions
  • Duplicated logic
  • Violations of language-specific best practices
  • Readability issues

The goal is to help developers quickly spot areas for improvement and make their code cleaner, more maintainable, and easier to understand.

Questions for you:

  • Would you use such a tool? Why or why not?
  • What features would make it important for you? (e.g., integration with GitHub, support for obscure languages, explanations for each suggestion, etc.)
  • Are you ready to pay for a tool like this (for example, paying for access to advanced checks or being able to tune checks for your programming style)?
  • Are there existing tools you love (or hate) that do something similar?
  • 6nk06@sh.itjust.works
    8·
    3 months ago

    JetBrains and Cursor do that already but better and without pasting anything. I’m sure it also exists with Copilot, Claude or ChatGPT.

      • grandel@lemmy.mlEnglish
        2·
        3 months ago

        Im not OP but I use VS Code and it’s setup to:

        • perform a static code analysis
        • auto format code according to my defined code style
        • highlight unused variables, namespaces, etc.
        • make some suggestions to improve code quality

        Which is what I think OP is trying to say. Your idea sounds like what IDEs should do (and mostly do).

  • RonSijm@programming.dev
    41·
    3 months ago

    Are there existing tools you love (or hate) that do something similar?

    This sounds similar to “Static code analysis” tools. Especially now that these code analysis tools are getting AI integrations.

    For example we use coderabbit.ai. That does a code review on PRs in github, and reviews these sort of things. Especially the simpler things that you’ve mentioned like poor naming conventions, violations of language-specific best practices, and readability issues. I’m not sure if it will automatically come up with “large refactoring opportunities” by default - but maybe you can custom-prompt configure it to try, I guess

    (Comment) Why have a separate webpage if such of helper can be built into IDE/editor?

    Coderabbit also has IDE extensions: https://www.coderabbit.ai/ide - I think the separate webpage exists for org level configurations and overviews. These “best practices” are probably defined on a team level to ensure everyone uses the same code-style and things like that

    I’m not sure if “just a website to copypaste code and get reviews” is really a good idea. Maybe for juniors that want to review one class or method or something. But usually code is spread across multiple files, and structural refactor opportunities are on a larger scale then just a couple files

  • PokerChips@programming.dev
    2·
    2 months ago

    Make an open source project for this. I’d love something like this for neovim. Not that I ever have any novel code to leak but I still find it odd that we just invite businesses to just spy on our code.