Measuring Software Quality<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Imagine you are part of a team where code changes to a feature or bug fix branch are only merged into the develop or main branch following a review. Sometimes you are the author and sometimes one of the reviewers. I am currently part of a team that works in this way. In addition to quality assurance, knowledge sharing is also an important aspect. But how can we assess code quality?<\/p>\n\n\n\n This well-known meme by Thom Holwerda says, “The only valid measurement of code quality is WTFs per minute.” This seems to be a good metric. However, this metric does have some flaws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sooner or later, a team has no choice but to agree on a set of rules. They can be informal or formal. Typical coding guidelines cover topics such as naming conventions, formatting, code complexity, and language usage rules. The aim is to define and comply with quality standards relating to maintainability, reliability, performance and security. Written coding guidelines also simplify the onboarding of new team members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Manually checking compliance with coding guidelines as part of a review is so time-consuming that no one can afford to do it properly. Therefore, we have to automate as many checks as possible. This is possible for many aspects. The rest still have to be checked manually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In other words, we need a tool suite for automatic rule checking. dbLinter<\/a> is such a tool suite. It is a new product developed and continuously improved by Grisselbav<\/a> and United Codes<\/a>. dbLinter uses the IslandSQL<\/a> parser, which is updated quarterly with every release update of the Oracle AI Database for SQL, PL\/SQL, SQL*Plus and SQLcl.<\/p>\n\n\n\n dbLinter is the successor to the decommissioned db* CODECOP suite. dbLinter consists of a central repository, a web GUI and client tools. These include a CLI, a SonarQube plugin and a VS Code extension.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The VS Code extension is compatible with all IDEs that implement the Visual Studio Code Extension API<\/a>. Specifically: Visual Studio Code, Theia IDE, VSCodium, Cursor, Windsurf, Void, Kiro and Antigravity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n dbLinter for VS Code is available in both the Visual Studio Marketplace<\/a> and the Open VSX Registry<\/a>. Therefore, it can be conveniently installed directly from the IDE. The extension is free to use as part of the Anonymous and Starter plans (see dbLinter Pricing Plans<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is important to note that your code is always analysed locally, meaning that it never leaves your network. The configuration is read from the central repository, enabling the client to identify the active rules and parameters. These configurations, along with others, are managed using the Web GUI<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n dbLinter currently offers 187 rules. This includes all the rules from the decommissioned Trivadis PL\/SQL & SQL Coding Guidelines. Figure 2 shows the configuration of my 14 favourite rules. A violation of one of these rules is a bug. There is almost no room for interpretation here. The following chapters provide two examples.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The query in Listing 1 is based on the well-known ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.salvis.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/abbildung-1-wtfm.jpg\")
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Automation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Visual Studio Code Extension<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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<\/a>Top-N Queries with ROWNUM<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
EMP<\/code> table owned by the database user SCOTT<\/code>. It returns two rows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n