Code Review

Addressing performance issues or technical debt.

Whether you have concerns about existing software, are about to embark on a new development project, or need guidance to inform the direction of your digital transformation strategy, our code review service can give you the confidence you need to move forward.

At Box UK our developers and consultants have performed code reviews for clients including RS Group, Sodexo and Jaguar Land Rover, analysing large, complex systems that are often business-critical.

Code review checklist

As part of our code review service we’ll interrogate every aspect of your code, covering areas including:

Goals and objectives

Working closely with your team we’ll agree your strategic goals for the project, determine the drivers behind the review, discover what ‘success’ looks like and discuss any known issues, enabling us to put together a plan that focuses on the highest priority areas and activities.

Current processes

We’ll engage directly with your team members to understand how they currently work, creating a series of surveys that provide both quantitative and qualitative data about the teams’ working practices and development standards being applied.

Static analysis

Static analysis is a programmatic review of your codebase, employing automated tools to rapidly review the code against a series of industry-standard benchmarks and identify areas for improvement.

These automated tools will help us to efficiently identify risks, strengths and opportunities with the current codebase and assess issues including bugs, vulnerabilities, coding standards and site metrics.

Human analysis

Human code analysis entails a senior technical consultant reviewing the code base manually, looking at areas such as consistency of coding practices, design patterns and implementation of libraries or frameworks.

This supplements the static analysis by identifying how development practices are applied and helps to build a deeper understanding of the unique requirements of your business prior recommending any next steps.

Code review process

Your code review will begin with a collaborative kick-off session, the objectives of which are to introduce all project personnel (on both sides) and confirm project timelines – from the individual activities to be undertaken through to strategic goals, success criteria and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

If we’re undertaking a legacy platform code review we’ll also use this session to confirm the technologies in use along with any dependencies and integrations that fall within the scope of the review, to guide assessment activities and inform a software rescue or replacement plan.

This will inform the review process itself, where our technical consultants will assess your code against important criteria including:

• How it performs in terms of speed, reliability and security
• How well it adheres to standards and good practices
• How effectively it’s supported
• How easy it is to maintain
• How secure and scalable it is

We’ll then highlight the key facts and figures from our code analysis into a report compiled just for you, that can be used as an initial benchmark against which you can measure progress over time. This key deliverable will include:

• Visual representation of code quality
• Review of code performance against industry best practice
• Summary of identified issues and potential risks
• Future development roadmap

We’ll also provide clear, practical recommendations for improvement, prioritised so that you can direct your code optimisation efforts towards where they’ll deliver the greatest possible benefit, as quickly as possible.

Why Box UK?

Box UK has a proven track record in delivering market-leading software solutions and applies this knowledge to each and every code review we take on, working from our headquarters in the capital of Wales, offices in central London, and on-site as part of embedded teams.

Our knowledge of coding standards and best practice is informed by our own code, the quality of which has been recognised by numerous independent reviews and is further demonstrated through our ISO 9001:2015, ISO 27001:2013 and ISEB qualifications.

To ensure that your code review delivers targeted and actionable insight we’ll work closely with you through every stage of the process to identify the most suitable activities and metrics, using market-leading tools including PHPMetrics, Nessus and RIPS to support us in this process.