Basic Principlans of Code Review Process
- Collaboration.
- Code review involves multiple team members collaborating to review each other's code. It promotes knowledge sharing and spreads best practices.
- Code review encourages discussions about design decisions, code structure, and potential improvements, leading to better informed decisions and more effective teamwork.
- Feedback.
- Provide constructive feedback that will assist the other in the enhancement of their code. Feedback should be respectful, actionable, and specific.
- Continuous improvement.
- Code review is an iterative process aimed at continuously improving code quality. It is about learning and growing as a team.
- Code review encourages developers to reflect on their coding practices and seek opportunities for optimization and refinement.
- Focus on objectives.
- Reviewers should pay attention to the goals of the code modification, like fixing a bug or adding a new feature instead of getting into the details of tribal concerns.
- Code standards.
- This is important ensures that code adheres to the team's coding standards, style guidelines, and best practices.
- Consistency is crucial for maintainability and readability.
- Code ownership.
- While encouraging collective code ownership, respect the authors' right to their code.
- Encourage writers to be responsible for their code and respond to feedback in a way that makes sense.
- Automation.
- Use automated tools such as linters and static code analysis tools to catch common issues and enforce coding standards.
- This helps streamline the review process and ensures consistency.
- Timeliness.
- Do code reviews on time to avoid delays in the development process.
- Set clear expectations for review turnaround times, and prioritize critical changes.
- Documentation.
- Documentation the choices made during the review process, especially those about design and architecture. choices, and what was learnt.
- This helps maintain a record of discussions and facilitates onboarding of new team members.