The importance of code reviews

Code reviews are one of many important mechanisms (or rituals if you like) to ensure quality of your software project/product. Potential bugs can be caught early as well as negative performance / security implications.

What I find though, what is not mentioned enough, is that code reviews are also a great vehicle for knowledge transfer. By participating as a reviewer you can learn a lot.

That’s why I make an effort to get involved in code reviews as much as possible.

Respectful Reviews

While enjoying my morning cup of coffee and reading through blog posts, I came across this article from the Google Testing Blog. It is list of do’s and don’ts for code reviews, aimed both at authors and reviewers. A quick read and very helpful tips to make reviews better.

As an added bonus the article can be printed on one A-4, which you can hang on the toilet of your office. Probably something I will do when I’m back in the office 😄.

Going down the rabbit hole

The last bullet-point of that article refers to a page on how to deal with conflicts during code reviews. Which is part of a wider set of guidelines around code reviews that Google produced. More reading, more learning and something to share with the team.

Have a great weekend!

This post is part of a series of articles about “What I Have Learned Today”; acknowledging every day the thing I have learned. Feel free to read the other posts. all opinions in this article are my own and not necessarily represent the views of my employer.