Tech Lead Journal
#159 - Leveling Up Your Code Reviews from 'Good Enough' to Great - Adrienne Tacke
Episode guests
Podcast summary created with Snipd AI
Quick takeaways
- Code reviews help improve code quality and avoid associating self-worth with code.
- Code reviews promote knowledge transfer and teamwork within the team.
- Automation tools streamline code reviews, allowing reviewers to provide meaningful feedback and authors to focus on important changes.
Deep dives
The Importance of Letting Go of Ego and Receiving Objective Feedback
The author emphasizes the need to let go of ego when receiving feedback on code reviews. They explain that feedback is based solely on the code and not on personal qualities. By being open to objective feedback, authors can improve their code and avoid associating their self-worth with their work.
Benefits of Code Review: Knowledge Transfer and Historical Record
Code review provides opportunities for knowledge transfer among team members. It allows for a better understanding of code changes, why they are made, and how they fit into the overall codebase. Code reviews also create a historical record, aiding in traceability and accountability. When done properly, code reviews lead to a better understanding of the codebase and improved teamwork.
Using Automation to Improve Code Review
Automation plays a vital role in streamlining code reviews. By automating tasks such as formatting, linting, and static analysis, teams can reduce noise and focus on higher-stakes issues. Automation tools also help with initial checks, ensuring code quality before the review process. Using automation allows reviewers to provide meaningful feedback and enables authors to focus on important changes, improving the efficiency and effectiveness of code reviews.
Importance of Descriptive and Manageable Pull Requests
Creating descriptive and manageable pull requests is crucial for effective code reviews. Authors should provide a clear and informative title, along with a detailed description that explains the purpose and context of the code changes. By doing so, authors set up reviewers for success and ensure that the code review process is efficient and productive. Additionally, authors should strive to make their pull requests manageable by keeping them small and focused. Large, sprawling pull requests make it difficult for reviewers to thoroughly review the code and increase the chances of errors going unnoticed. By following guidelines for smaller, more atomic changes, authors make it easier for reviewers to provide valuable feedback and increase the likelihood of a thorough and successful code review.
Responsibilities of Reviewers
Reviewers play a vital role in the code review process and have specific responsibilities to ensure effective and objective reviews. Reviewers should focus solely on the code and strive to be objective, regardless of personal opinions or conflicts with the developer. They should provide feedback effectively by using a triple R pattern: stating the request, providing the rationale, and offering a result. This approach helps reviewers communicate their feedback clearly and helps authors understand the requested changes. Reviewers should also be thorough in their reviews, avoiding the temptation to skim through the code. Giving the review the time and attention it deserves ensures that potential issues or improvements are not missed. Finally, reviewers have a responsibility to be transparent and provide a proper review in a timely manner. By taking these responsibilities seriously, reviewers contribute to effective code reviews and the overall quality of the codebase.
“A lot of developers tie their self-worth to their code. Being able to let go of your ego and understanding the feedback is based on the code, and it has nothing to do with anything about me. It’s just the code.”
Adrienne Tacke is a software engineer, keynote speaker, and the author of the upcoming book “Looks Good To Me”.
In this episode, we discuss code reviews and why it is an essential part of the software development process. Adrienne discusses the importance and benefits of code review, the common code review workflow and the different roles involved, how to provide effective code review comments, and why we should leverage on code review tools and automation. She also provides tips on how to speed up our code review turnaround time.
Listen out for:
- Career Journey - [00:03:31]
- Looks Good to Me (LGTM) - [00:09:05]
- Code Review Story - [00:12:24]
- Importance of Code Review - [00:15:38]
- Code Review Benefits - [00:20:27]
- Code Review Role: Author - [00:25:50]
- Code Review Role: Reviewer - [00:32:42]
- Code Review Role: The Team - [00:38:41]
- Code Review Tools & Automation - [00:45:53]
- Effective Code Review Comments - [00:51:44]
- Code Review Turnaround - [00:57:45]
- 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [01:04:56]
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Adrienne Tacke’s Bio
Adrienne is a Filipina software engineer, keynote speaker, author of the best-selling book Coding for Kids: Python, and a LinkedIn Learning instructor who’s reached over 65,000 learners with her courses (a number she’ll likely surpass when you read this). She is writing Looks Good To Me: Constructive Code Reviews, a labor of love that she hopes will improve code reviews everywhere. Perhaps most important, however, is that she spends way too much money on desserts and ungodly amounts of time playing Age of Empires II.
Follow Adrienne:
- LinkedIn – linkedin.com/in/adriennetacke
- Twitter / X – @AdrienneTacke
- Instagram – @adriennetacke
- Website – adrienne.io
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