Re:How to do a code review
by matwood on Friday September 06, 2019 @08:16AM
(#20894943)
> I've seen cases where people got hundreds of comments (many of them minor, nitpicky) from more experienced developers and were discouraged by the sheer number of them.
Unfortunately many people stink at communication. The best thing a reviewer can do during a code review is ask questions. A reviewer who comes in and just says 'this is wrong' misses an opportunity to either learn themselves or actually teach the submitter. A much better approach is to ask the submitter why they did something certain way. What were their thoughts, and what did they see.
IME, asking questions leads to much better outcomes. Sometimes the submitter will just admit they were not thinking about anything and see their own errors. Upside, they found the issue themselves. Other times they'll explain some complexity or use case only they could see while deep in the code. Upside, I just learned something.
In general the best teachers ask questions. It doesn't put people's egos on the defensive, and tends to help people learn more effectively (the goal if any review IMO). I've seen this work on me in other scenarios like Jiu-Jitsu. My teacher will ask mid-roll or afterwards why I did something, no matter how stupid it was. Explaining my thought process helps me to better recognize the error, and I'm not immediately on the defensive. I'm then much more receptive when the teacher goes "that wasn't a terrible idea, but if you did this...".
Unfortunately many people stink at communication. The best thing a reviewer can do during a code review is ask questions. A reviewer who comes in and just says 'this is wrong' misses an opportunity to either learn themselves or actually teach the submitter. A much better approach is to ask the submitter why they did something certain way. What were their thoughts, and what did they see.
IME, asking questions leads to much better outcomes. Sometimes the submitter will just admit they were not thinking about anything and see their own errors. Upside, they found the issue themselves. Other times they'll explain some complexity or use case only they could see while deep in the code. Upside, I just learned something.
In general the best teachers ask questions. It doesn't put people's egos on the defensive, and tends to help people learn more effectively (the goal if any review IMO). I've seen this work on me in other scenarios like Jiu-Jitsu. My teacher will ask mid-roll or afterwards why I did something, no matter how stupid it was. Explaining my thought process helps me to better recognize the error, and I'm not immediately on the defensive. I'm then much more receptive when the teacher goes "that wasn't a terrible idea, but if you did this...".