In software development, the code review process stands as a crucial checkpoint for ensuring code quality, fostering collaboration, and promoting knowledge sharing among team members. Despite the importance, many engineers lack a clear mental map of how effective reviews work. This is my attempt to help code reviews and reviewers improve.

Whether you’re steering an open source project or leading full-time a software development team, the key to maximizing productivity lies in efficient code reviews.

  • KissakiEnglish
    1·
    9 months ago

    Interesting take I can’t agree with. Maybe their product environment is very different.

    once the feature finally arrives in production after a lengthy review, it is in truth no longer aligned with the user’s needs.

    I’ve never had this happen in my development.

    In my team, it’s fine to skip reviews and commit on main, when it’s reasonably small and confidence is high. An obvious and small change also does not take up much time to review.

    The effort put into creating a well-/reasonably-described review is effort put into well design changesets and Git history. It helps you cover all bases, cases, and considerations while developing.

    Review necessity, investment, and urgency are dynamic. If you as a reviewer don’t have the time of mindspace, saying so is fine. Reviewers can be changed or skipped. Reviews can be to different depth and completeness, or partial.

    Be mindful of what is reasonable and efficient and reviews are not hard blockers beyond what they should reasonably be. Reviews serve as significant quality, issue, and common understanding gates.