Reporting is, generally, one of the most boring tasks/subsections of Software Developments. The level of “uninterestingness” is exemplified by the “TPS” reports in OfficeSpace. However, reports can be awesome. They can be incredibly useful when they help you if they  accomplish your tasks, are interactive, and show data in a convenient/uncluttered fashion.

Unit testing is one of the categories that is absolutely necessary in development [even more so for larger systems], however the tools to scour these tests are often unhelpful. The tools that interact with NUnit, JUnit, GUnit tend to just reveal the results of the tests shown. Code coverage tools help, in reporting back the % of code covereed by the tests [and some times, with TestCacoon (C++), and EMMA/EMMA-compatable (Java) IDEs] However these tools lack an overall reporting capiblity to say “hey these bits/seconds/methods/components” lack the coverage the most in your code.

The only tool that I have found so far that will handle this is Clover [by Atlassian]. The features look great. Unfortunately, the product requires having a centralized build server. Which is a little too much to ask for hobby projects. [Speculation warning] To use this, it would require a continuous integration/build server setup.  Also, the cost maybe little high [$1200 for a 1 machine server] to make an off the cuff suggestion to management.I realize the return for a product may exceed the cost of developing a huge commercial product, however it is a little difficult to determine that [without the evaluation trial (if requires an build server and you don’t have one that’s a lot to ask for an evaluation)]. They do have an desktop version, but from the screenshots and the description, I wonder how well that would work [being a web client]. Also, I doubt that it includes C++/GUnit support.