SonarJava default profile changes

[andreas...@coremedia.com]

Hi,

with every update of the SonarJava plugin, I'm comparing the changes in the default profile with the prior version and then add or remove rules in our customized profile in a similar way.

With the last updates however, I often wonder why certain rules have been removed from the default profile. It would be nice if you could explain in the release notes or linked JIRA issues, why you think certain rules should no longer be part of the default profile. Nowadays I'm always wondering why a rule has been removed and if it would make sense to remove it from our custom profile as well.

For example, with the last update to 4.7.0, 8 rules were removed from the default profile: https://github.com/SonarSource/sonar-java/commit/94a119e58b8ee13006dc62b17ea634916f231bab#diff-a2dcf5dfed9a3a9acadab9dce6e4befb
There's no hint in the commit or corresponding JIRA why: https://jira.sonarsource.com/browse/SONARJAVA-2139

Would be great, if you could share your reasons for default profile changes in the future somehow.

Thanks and keep up the great work!

Cheers,
Andreas

[G. Ann Campbell]

Hi Andreas,

Bravo for keeping on top of the default profiles!

Regarding the rules that have been removed from Sonar way, our philosophy is that the contents of Sonar way should be absolutely uncontroversial. That is, it should be relevant for every developer on every project regardless of, for instance, coding style or framework choice. We've begun a re-evaluation of Sonar way with that in mind, and that's why you've seen some rules drop out of the profile in the most recent version. You're likely to see more rules drop out in the next version or so.

I understand your desire for a "why" on each one, but we're not likely to create tickets for most of these metadata changes because with our infrastructure, it's literally more work to create the ticket, much less manage it, than it is to make the change. Maybe that's not a good excuse, and believe me we try to be rigorous about changes that affect users, but most users will never notice or be affected by these tiny shifts in profile content.

So... should you deactivate these rules as well? Not if you're happy with what they're doing for you. Essentially we're trying to drop from the default experience any rules that raise issues that a brand new user might see as irrelevant because he meant to do what it is the issue has been raised on. So if you're having that experience with these or any other rules, you should indeed drop them. And I hope you'll ping us if you have that experience with a rule that's still in the default profile.

Ann

[andreas...@coremedia.com]

Thanks for the good explanation, Ann!
I now have a much better feeling when keeping existing rules.

Andreas