I just came across this post the other day by the Visual Studio Code Analysis Team talking about the latest beta release of FxCop. There are a lot of changes since the FxCop 1.35 release, which was a while ago. Some of the changes are:
- Over 200 bug fixes that reduce the amount of noise, missing analysis, and rule crashes.
- Support for analyzing anonymous methods and lambda expressions.
- New globalization, design, and usage rules.
- Better support for C++/CLI and the .NET Compact Framework.
- Performance improvements.
- The ability to skip analyzing tool generated code.
- Language "friendly" API names (the UI and resolution details are now language sensitive, so if you're analyzing VB code it will show VB syntax).
There are also some underlying architectural changes and SDK changes that will probably break any custom rules you have written or are using for FxCop 1.35.
Now, if we could get a similar stand-alone tool for the code metrics, or even incorporate them into FxCop, I'll be extremely happy. This new release of FxCop is an excellent start and includes some much needed improvements.