Estimating quality of a codebase

Just how?

You've just got a new job, or a new gig. You are now working on an existing software with a codebase already in place. You start reading the code to understand the code and check its quality.

• What do you look for when estimating the quality of the code written?
• What are some red flags that would give you an indication that something is wrong?

Really curious about what you think.

Comments

[Michiel Hendriks]

I first look at the code style

1. is it consistent
2. how big are the units (i.e. type/methods/files/..)
   • are they small

Then I look at the pre-commit phase of the project

1. is there a simple and quick build/verify process
2. is there basic static analysis
3. how many unit tests are there

A 'no' to any of these is a red flag.