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Software Engineering Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [code-reviews]

This tag is for questions about the practice of code review and code walkthroughs. For reviews of existing, working code, please see http://codereview.stackexchange.com

A code review is an examination of the code by other programmers. The goal of a code review is often to find and fix mistakes that were missed in the earlier phases.

For asking about code reviews of specific code (rather than the process of doing a code review), please see http://codereview.stackexchange.com. Before asking a question there, make sure that it is appropriately on topic.

364 questions
194
votes
20 answers

How to find positive things in a code review?

After some serious quality problems in the last year, my company has recently introduced code reviews. The code review process was quickly introduced, without guidelines or any kind of checklist. Another developer and I where chosen to review all…
RobMMurdock
  • 1,651
158
votes
34 answers

How do you make people accept code review?

All programmers have their style of programming. But some of the styles are let’s say... let’s not say. So you have code review to try to impose certain rules for good design and good programming techniques. But most of the programmers don’t like…
user7197
119
votes
8 answers

What to do when code submitted for code review appears to be too complicated?

The code is difficult to follow but it appears to be (mostly) working well, at least with superficial testing. There might be small bugs here and there but it's very hard to tell by reading the code if they are symptomatic of deeper issues or simple…
Bradley Thomas
  • 5,100
111
votes
11 answers

Is it effective to review code in language I don't know?

I'm an experienced developer, but have not done many code reviews. I'm being asked to review code written in Python but I do not know Python. Does it make any sense at all to review code in a language I don't know?
Heather Smith
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95
votes
11 answers

In code reviews, should the reviewer always present a solution for issues?

When reviewing code, I normally try to make specific recommendations on how to resolve the issues. But owing to the limited time one can spend for reviewing, this does not always work well. In these cases I find it more efficient if the developer…
Frank Puffer
  • 6,429
91
votes
8 answers

How to reject a code review that you believe is unnecessary?

I am in a position where I have been asked to review some code that fixes a problem that I don't believe exists. The fixer, who is more senior than me, insists his fix is necessary but it appears to be no more than C++ sophistry to me. Part of…
James
  • 4,348
70
votes
19 answers

Review before or after code commit, which is better?

Traditionally we performed code review before commit, I had an argument with my colleague today, who preferred code review after commit. First, here's some background, We have some experienced developers and we also have new hires with almost…
fifth
  • 669
55
votes
17 answers

Is a code review subjective or objective (quantifiable)?

I am putting together some guidelines for code reviews. We do not have one formal process yet and are trying to formalize it. And our team is geographically distributed. We are using TFS for source control (we used it for tasks/bug tracking/project…
ram
48
votes
14 answers

How important is positive feedback in code reviews?

Is it important to point out the good parts of the code during a code review and the reasons why it is good? Positive feedback might be just as useful for the developer being reviewed and for the others that participate in the review. We are doing…
c_maker
  • 8,280
36
votes
11 answers

How to give feedback on a badly reviewed PR

In my current workplace, I act as lead developer and architect in a team of software developers. The general policy for merge/pull requests is that 1 person has to review and approve the request. This person must not be the author. Sometimes code is…
FabianTe
  • 505
33
votes
10 answers

How to deal with no code reviews in my new place when I come from that practice?

The team in my new company does not have a code review process. I come from companies with code review as a must culture and thus I don't feel comfortable committing my code without having it reviewed by someone. I'm a firm believer that code…
jparkcool
  • 441
28
votes
8 answers

How should code reviews be carried out?

My previous question has to do with how to advance code reviews among the developers. Here I am interested in how a code review session should be carried out, so that both the reviewer and reviewed are feeling comfortable with it. I have done some…
Graviton
  • 4,005
24
votes
7 answers

Code review from domain non expert

My team has a mixture of specialties, there's some overlap however. When some commits are done from person A (who is expert in some domain) and person B (who is not expert in that domain) I wonder if it is appropriate to ask in depth questions about…
user8469759
  • 497
23
votes
4 answers

Application / Code reviews for lone programmers?

Are there any services that 'for a reasonable price' will give and provide good and technical advice on applications. On a lot of projects, I'm usually the only developer, and sometimes, I think some of my work needs to be improved for efficiency,…
dassouki
  • 702
20
votes
3 answers

Starting Up Code Review Process Where there Previously Was None?

Any tips for a group needing to start code reviews? We have no real software engineering processes currently. I have been working as software engineer for 7 years and have never seen any real processes implemented at the various places I have…
Engineer2021
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