Frequently asked questions

General FAQs

• What is jSparrow? (non-technical)

  Captain jSparrow is your personal Java refactoring partner, a precision tool that can maintain and fix issues (bugs, flaws, and breaches) across files making sure that your software has the exact same functionality and interfaces i.e. refactoring. The purpose of jSparrow is to help developers fix and automate maintenance tasks, high code quality, state-of-the-art practices, increased cyber security, platform stability, modernization obligations, and application performance. If you want to gain first-hand experience with jSparrow, you can install jSparrow through the Eclipse Marketplace .

  Install jSparrow
• What are the technical specifications of jSparrow?

  Please visit our “About jSparrow” page for the technical specifications of jSparrow.

• Is jSparrow Safe?

  Yes, jSparrow is safe. You can read more about the pipeline and how the refactoring works by visiting the ‘About jSparrow’ page.

  About jSparrow
• Where do I install jSparrow?

  You can install jSparrow on Eclipse Marketplace in your selected browser or directly in your Eclipse IDE!

  jSparrow install: Eclipse Marketplace

  Don't forget to favorite ☆ jSparrow for refactoring days!

• How to unsubscribe from paid subscription?

  To unsubscribe from a jSparrow product go to your orders, then sign in with the e-mail you used to buy and wait for the log-in link from FastSpring. Click on “manage” on your bought product and there should be options to unsubscribe.

• How to unsubscribe from Newsletter?

  To unsubscribe from the jSparrow newsletter please open the latest newsletter and scroll down to the footer of the e-mail, there you will find the unsubscribe link.

• What is the difference between the free and full versions of jSparrow?

  The main difference between the free and the full version of jSparrow is the amount rules. The more rules you can apply to your project, the more significant the changes to your code will be.

  A huge benefit from our free version is the 89 live and in-depth markers, which will help you implement Java best practices. The markers are especially helpful for students or beginners, who are learning to program in Java and who want to get the best possible code structure right from the beginning.

  As mentioned, the main difference is that the free version contains 20 rules, the full version contains 114 powerful rules, including the free rules which you can apply system-wide.

  If you are interested in our premium version of jSparrow click here: Pricing

  • What does the jSparrow free version contain?

    Our free jSparrow version contains 20 of our most liked refactoring rules and can be requested without any payment information required. Additionally, we have recently released all our 89 live and in-depth markers to help developers mitigate issues and code smells in real time.

    The free bundle includes these rules:

    • Collapse If Statements
    • Replace equals() on Enum Constants
    • Replace For-Loop with Enhanced-For-Loop
    • Replace Expression Lambda with Method Reference
    • Split Multiple Variable Declarations
    • Use Optional::filter
    • Organize Imports
    • Use @Override Annotation
    • Remove Boxing for String Conversions
    • Remove Double Negations
    • Remove Unnecessary Semicolons
    • Remove Null-Checks Before Instanceof
    • Remove Unnecessary Thrown Exceptions on Method Signatures
    • Remove toString() on String
    • Reorder String Equality Check
    • Replace Inefficient Constructors with valueOf()
    • Use Try-With-Resource
    • Replace Equality Check with isEmpty()
    • Use Offset Based String Methods
    • Use SecureRandom

    Free Trial

    After registration you will receive a free license key in the e-mail you have used for registering. The license key is valid for 15 days. You can re-register as many times as you like.

  • What does a jSparrow premium license contain?

    jSparrow Premium includes 114 automatic Java refactoring rules.

    jSparrow Premium allows you to customize logging rules; The location, where logs are written, becomes independent of the code and can be customized at runtime. Additionally, jSparrow premium includes a rule that removes type declarations that are never used. The rule Remove Unused Types comes with a dedicated configuration wizard which allows you to choose the kind of type declarations you want to remove and how to handle the related test cases. For example, you can select ‘private fields’ withing the project scope which will remove unused private fields within selected project.

    The list of rules and their documentation can be found in our documentation space. If there are any problems, please feel free to contact us.

    See Premium Pricing
  • How can I upgrade my free license key to a premium version?

    Feel free to visit our pricing site here and choose your preferred subscription plan.

• Manual refactoring, a story

  You can’t always count on code, but you probably already know this.

  When dealing with old code, our primary go-to for maintenance is to try to understand what was written (hopefully we, and co, commented out everything). Here’s a well known joke: “When I wrote this code, only God and I understood what I did. Now… only God knows.”

  Code refactoring allows us, step by step, to improve code. However, code refactoring can be extremely frustrating. We could be stuck with figuring out variables or wondering if a variable is necessary for other files. How can we be sure we didn’t break something? Do we keep the unknown variables? And we have not even started with the methods ….

  We probably need to test the refactored code to make sure we didn’t break anything.. We know that writing unit tests in a legacy system will be difficult. And we probably should write other automated tests (just in case) and be prepared to revert changes.. in case we accidentally invited some issues.

  But we just started! It’s only 11:00! We have to keep on reading, coding, running tests.. over and over until we have achieved something that is ‘satisfactory’. We MIGHT as well clean some code and write in our documentation (tomorrow).

  Imagine the amount of time we could’ve saved if there was a plugin for refactoring…

  
  
  

  If you have read through all of this.. we are positive that you might enjoy jSparrow as much as we do.

• For which purpose was jSparrow designed?

  Many old structures and legacy codes need optimization, but manual labor is time consuming, expensive, and often boring. To address this issue we have decided to create jSparrow, a tool that is dedicated to establishing all possible Java refactoring changes automatically.

  jSparrow is designed to:

  • improve software speed and performance for private users,
  • reduce technical debts for the upkeep of Java legacies,
  • help developers write state-of-the-art syntaxes with cleaner, more efficient, and more secure code
  • and increase internal stability, security, and performance for companies worldwide.

  Maintenance needs to be as easy and fast as possible; with jSparrow it is easy to integrate software maintenance into day-to-day operations.

  Our biggest motivation behind jSparrow is the idea of creating one code, that can help automatically improve all future codes with just one click.

• Who is behind jSparrow?

  If you are interested in the mission, vision, motivation, and team behind jSparrow, feel free to read more about us here

• How can I install jSparrow on Eclipse IDE?

  Please go to the jSparrow documentation space to see a detailed step-by-step description

• Why should my company care about refactoring?

  Increased performance

  jSparrow automatically modernizes software to more secure and performant versions. Performant software has higher success rates! The benefit of using new versions of Java is its increased performance, security, and speed during your daily work.

  High Code Quality and Automation

  jSparrow can do a lot of things automatically. It can apply coding standards, review and analyze code, and fix the findings. All of these steps are well-known to improve code quality. jSparrow can help developers keep a high code quality by refactoring already existing code as well as overviewing your new code in real-time with 89 unique markers. No one likes repetitive and boring manual maintenance work that often leads to risks of more errors, so why not automate it?

  A more secure environment

  Once jSparrow fixes your Java code and optimizes your software, the safety of your project increases. Avoiding security risks has never been easier! Your software and source code, fixed with jSparrow, will be based on best practices and methods to increase protection against cyberattacks and unauthorized queries.

  Why should I care about technical debt?

  Most development teams consider a code ready when it’s good to pass the QA stage. For example, software with hard-to-read code can give the QA stages easily. But as time goes by, it becomes more and more challenging to implement new features and sort out bugs. Hence, one of the essential parts of addressing technical debt is to educate organizations about its overall costs and importance. Implementing and using automatic refactoring like jSparrow also helps prevent technical debt right from the development process. Additionally, a large number of existing quality or security issues have unique resolutions that can be addressed automatically. In such cases, automated refactoring tools are very desirable. Last but not least, implementing refactoring within the agile environment can ensure that your team is indeed doing the best it can, to prevent all future problems related to technical debt.

  What is technical debt?

  Very often, development teams face challenging deadlines and are pressured by clients or by marketing teams. In such circumstances, the decisions they take tend to favor speedy delivery and fast results over quality code. If such code can perform it could pass as complete, it will require maintenance, updates, bug fixes, or improvements sooner or later. When developers have to deal with it again, they inevitably are forced to invest the time, money, and effort to finish and perfect what was initially a code that was far from perfect. Just like the concept of borrowed money in the financial industry, technical debt refers to borrowed resources in the future – and especially time & resources to refactor a code to make it easier to read and maintain for other developers.

  Why should I refactor Java software?

  As software size grows with time, as developers change, and as new software developers join the team, code maintenance becomes increasingly difficult. Each situation also introduces more complexity, increases the possibility of bugs and redundant code as well as decreases reliability. Very often, rewriting software completely is not necessary. Manual rewrites can make developers miss unwanted hidden values in the original code. This manual work is almost always costly and time-consuming. In such cases, refactoring could help improve code performance and code security. When refactoring is implemented in the original development process, it could also be considered a valuable long-term investment in the longevity and reliability of the software.

• Is refactoring essential?

  Is refactoring essential?

  There are many reasons to do refactoring. A few reasons are:

  • the size of software grows with time,
  • developers will change,
  • new developers will join the team, and in these situations, code maintenance becomes increasingly difficult.

  Each situation also introduces more complexity, increases the possibility of bugs and redundant code as well as decreases reliability. When refactoring is implemented in the original development process, it could also be considered a valuable long-term investment in the longevity and reliability of the software. However, manual rewrites can make developers miss unwanted hidden values in the original code and manual refactoring is almost always costly and time consuming. In such cases, automated refactoring could help improve code performance and code security faster – giving more time and freedom to build up software.

  Code refactoring is usually used for improving the non-functional attributes of a software system:

  • higher efficiency,
  • maintainability,
  • security,
  • extendability

  In addition, it can dramatically reduce costs and improve overall code performance, as refactoring can help find and remove code smells that could otherwise prove to be expensive or be slowing down the software.

• I am a student, how does jSparrow matter?

  We promote students and their education

  The Splendit IT consulting officially sponsors every university attendee with a 50% voucher for jSparrow. We know there is nothing more important than proper education, especially within the ever-growing field of IT, and believe that especially our 89 live and in-depth markers can assist you while learning Java best practices.

  • How do I receive my 50% off voucher?

    Our program will automatically generate an activation code sent to your e-mail if you are using an official student e-mail. If you did not receive your voucher, please contact us through our contact form!

    To speed up the process, you can always send us your student ID for verification.

  • When should I as a Student consider refactoring?

    Whenever code becomes outdated, has not been written by the same developer team or you want to integrate it into another framework.

    However, refactoring is a long and exhausting process, which not many developers want to go through. As a result of this, there is a lot of legacy code that is way overdue and in dire need of improvement.

    With jSparrow, you can consider refactoring literally at any time within your project or even multiple times.