FxCop: A starting point

In an effort to improve overall code quality at work, we are initiating manual and automated code reviews. One of the tools we will be using for automated reviews is FxCop. There are just two minor issues with this:

1. Running every rule on an existing code base usually results in a massive backlog
2. Most developers, myself included, are unfamiliar with at least some of the rules

Granted, several of the rules categories can be turned off on most projects (Portability and Interoperability come to mind.) There are also a few rules that are unimportant or largely obsolete. This still leaves a sizeable list of rules to deal with.

Our planned approach is to enable several of the rules as warnings on the build server. After the developers have addressed any issues, the build will be modified to fail on future violations of those rules. Slowly adding rules, first as warnings and then as errors, will allow us to clean up our existing code base and prevent new violations from being introduced. As we go I will be putting together examples of violations and fixes. I'll post the examples for those who want to follow along at home.