FxCop output

FxCop output has a problem: a high signal:noise ratio. (Do I mean high or low?)

I mean that there seems to be a lot of noise in the output for a few good bit of information.

In Visual Studio 2005, the Code Analysis warnings/errors turn up in the Error/Warning/Info window, and the nice thing is that they can navigate directly to the code that caused the entry.

I think there are a couple of ways that Code Analysis could be more useful. The output should be more structured, for one thing: group and sort it on the category and rule, rather than listed by source code line. So you could drill down on the category and rule, and see all the code lines that broke that rule - you could decide which rules to fix, which to ignore (rt-click ->Ignore and it either marks the code with the attribute or it changes the Code Analysis warning level for that rule). Rules should have a severity rating too, so its more than just Off, Warning, and Error. You could prioritize the work activities easier with a severity or risk rating for each rule.

And, there should be Intellisense fixes linked to the rules, so that you could ask the editor to fix it. Hover over the code that breaks the rule, and you get the "what can I do to fix this?" popup.

As it is, I have regularly ignored FxCop output in past projects because it is so exhaustive. I'm not proud of that, but I would like to use my review time more productively than fixing these warnings.