Code Review- An Effective Process To Develop Quality Softwares

Every professional in the software industry must have always heard the buzz about code review. However, it has been an overlooked concept ignoring its advantages or misconceptions built around it. If you have ever thought of punching your keyboard with the following words, “What is code review..? How to conduct code review..? “, then I believe you have reached to end of your search effort.

This blog shall enable the readers to understand everything that should be known about the code review process like what, why, and how about the code review. We’ll also create a checklist or a guide for code review to save you ample time from exploring through Google.

What Is Code Review?

It is an integral process and an ongoing practice during the software development phase. It helps to identify defects and bugs before the testing phase. It is an agile process where pieces of source code are made available to peers for inspection with an aim to catch bugs, highlight mistakes, and remove vulnerabilities before they form a part of the product.

Code review is a two-way conversation where both the author of the code and its reviewer communicate and learn from each other. Thus it can also be thought of as a knowledge-sharing process.

Read More: 15 Effective Code Review Practices for Product Engineering Teams

What Code Review Is Not?

A Blame Game:

Code review is intended to find defects in codes and not in people. If misunderstood then the team starts hating the process and creates a conflict among code authors and reviewers.

100% Bug Free Solution:

Although it can find early bugs to a greater extent, code review does not guarantee or shall not be assumed that it will produce 100% bug-free builds without any testing and quality analysis. You should consider it one of the other tools for producing quality products.

Why?

Early Detection Of Potential Bugs:

Finding and correcting errors at the initial development stage is relatively inexpensive as compared to the more expensive process of locating and bug fixing occurring at the later stages of development. It helps intensely to develop quality softwares by early catching mistakes and avoiding bad problems in the product.

Software’s developed by humans and to err is human. Hence quite obvious reasons to have reviews. Also, the developers mostly depend on manual or automated testing to inspect their code and functionalities. Meanwhile, they are ignoring the great gift and skill of human nature: the ability to see and correct the mistakes of others.

Mentoring New Engineers:

Consider a scenario when a junior developer joins your project team. The senior developer may not have enough time to give him the best of the training or hand-hold the junior folks, since they need to be coding. Doing small and frequent reviews of the junior developers will help him to learn on a great scale.

Also, the senior developer can spend all his time in developing his code and spare 15-20 minutes a couple of times a day to review the code changes by juniors. This way the junior is benefitted from the regular feedback allowing him to develop as a good developer and meanwhile the senior developer also does not lose much of his valuable coding time.

Agile Team:

Not to forget how important it is for organizations to follow agile methodology. Their revenue source depends mostly on delivering working prototypes at regular intervals. So it becomes very important and useful for such organizations to produce quality prototypes.

Better Estimates:

Code review helps in knowledge sharing between the author of the code and its reviewer. The reviewer is also aware of the complexity of the project, known issues, and areas of concern in the code base. Thus the team gets a good knowledge about the product and the reviewer can help the developer to make a correct estimate of the future work.

How To Get Started In An Organization?

There will always be a point in the organization to start the code review process. However, any change or new introduction will always be resisted somehow. If the decision-makers of the organization support the innovation, collaboration, and continuous improvement process, then it’s an added advantage to get started.

They need to be convinced about the ongoing and continuous improvement of the codes, their products, and also their employees.

Even if the decision-makers are not that forward-thinking or future-oriented, you can get started through a bottom-up approach. You can start with a few members or a team, and prove the advantages of it. It will boost the productivity and confidence of the team and which will ultimately inspire others to follow the same.

How To Avoid Failure Of The Started Process?

Don’t Shoot Them:

Few members might not step out of their comfort zone or might resist because they might have had some previous bad experiences. It is not good to force them to follow the process. Try approaching them and encouraging them by convincing them to give it another try by making the process simple and lightweight.

Keep It Really Simple And Lightweight:

Do not kick start the code review process by enforcing with too many rules, pre-authorization, and loads of formal documentation/reports. Too many formal rules will definitely receive major pushback from your team.

Don’t Overdo It:

Do not micro-manage the team with every small change. Do not make a big team for reviewing one’s code. More the number of members, the more time required for review and hence more the cost incurred. So it is better to have a small team of 2-3 members to have an effective code review.