A well-defined code review process within product teams is a powerful enabler for achieving high-quality software and a maintainable codebase. This allows for seamless collaboration among colleagues and an effortless interplay between various engineering disciplines.
With proper code review practices, engineering teams can produce a collaborative culture where learning happens organically, and where improvements to the code commit are welcomed not as a formality but as a step in the agile evolution journey. The importance of code review cannot be understated; however, it can be effectively addressed and underscored within the cyclic approach of the software development life cycle (SDLC) framework. This document seeks to aid teams with the provided recommended best practices to advance their review processes and product quality.
Mindbowser is one of the thought leaders in technology we turned to because they are known for their precise solutions. With years of experience integrating together insights from project work, they learn that quality code always guarantees innovative solutions and assures improved user experience.
Here at ExpertStack, we have developed a tailored list of suggestions which, when followed, enable code authors to maximize the advantages they can gain from participating in the review process. With the implementation of these suggested best practices for code reviews, organizations can cultivate a more structured environment that harnesses workforce collaboration and productive growth.
In the remaining parts of this article, we will outline best practices to assist code authors serve their submissions to peer reviews and eloquently navigate the complex review process. We’ll provide tried-and-true methods alongside some of our newest strategies, allowing authors to learn the art of submitting reviews and integrating feedback on revisions.
What is the Role of Code Review in Software Development Success?
Enhancing Quality and Identifying Defects
A code review is a crucial step toward fixing bugs and achieving logic error goals in software development. Fixing these issues before a production-level deployment can save software developers a significant amount of money and resources since any bugs will be eliminated before the end users are affected.
Reviewers offer helpful comments which assist in refactoring the code to make it easy to read and maintain. With improved readability comes low-effort comprehensible documentation that can save fellow team members time when maintaining the codebase.
Encouraging sharing and collective learning within teams
Through code reviews, developers learn different ways of coding and problem-solving which enhances sharing of knowledge within the team. They build upon each other’s understanding, leading to an improvement in the entire team’s proficiency.
Furthermore, code reviews enable developers to improve their competencies and skills. Learning cultures emerge as a result of team members providing feedback and suggestions. Improvement becomes the norm, and team-wide skills begin to rise.
Identifying and Managing Compliance and Security Risks
Using code reviews to build an organization’s security posture proactively enhances identification and mitigation of security issues and threats in the software development life cycle. In addition, reviews of the software code aid in verifying that the appropriate industry standards were adhered to, thereby certifying that the software fulfills critical privacy and security obligations.
Boosting Productivity in Development Efforts
Through progressive feedback, code reviews are helpful in augmenting productivity in software development by resolving difficulties at the primary stages of development instead of erasing hard-won progress with expensive bug-fixing rounds later on in the project timeline.
Moreover, team members acquire new skills and expertise together through participation in collaborative sessions, making the development team more skilled and productive by enabling them to generate higher-quality code more rapidly thanks to shared skills cultivation.
15 Tips for Creating Code Reviews That Are More Effective
Here are some effective and useful strategies to follow when performing code reviews:
1. Do a Pre-Review Self Assessment
Complete a self-review of the code prior to submission. Fixing simple problems on your own means the reviewer can focus on the more difficult alterations, making the process more productive.
Reviewing changes helps identify oversights, and enables self-optimizing in dealing with a given problem. Utilize code review software like GitHub, Bitbucket, Azure DevOps, or Crucible to aid authors during reviews. These applications let you check the differences between the present version of your code and the most recent one.
These applications let you assess the version that is being compared, where the focus is on changes made. This mindset strengthens evaluation and improvement. Taking the self-review path with advanced recourse aids promotes collaborative and constructive code development and is almost non negotiable for a DevOps culture.
2. Look at the Changes Incrementally
As review size increases, the value of feedback also decreases in proportion. Conducting reviews across huge swathes of code is quite challenging from both an attention and time perspective; the reviewer is likely to miss detail alongside potential problems. In addition, the risk of review delays may stagnate the work.
You should try to think of reworking a whole codebase as an iterative process instead. A good example of this is when the code authors submit proposals for new features centered around a module; these can be submitted in the form of smaller review requests for better focus. The advantages of this approach are simply too good to be passed upon.
The approach provides maximum attention and it becomes much simpler to discover useful feedback. In addition, the work becomes easy and relevant to the developer’s skill level, meaning incorporation becomes much easier. Finally, it reduces the chances of bugs in a simplified modular codebase while paving the way for simpler updates and maintenance down the line.
3. Triage the Interconnected Modifications
The submission of numerous modifications in a single code review can be overwhelming for the reviewers, making it difficult for them to give detailed and insightful feedback. This type of review exhaustion compounds deconstructive large code reviews with unrelated modifications, providing suboptimal feedback laced with inefficiency.
Nevertheless, addressing this challenge is possible through grouping-related changes. Structuring the modifications by purpose helps in organizing the review to be manageable in scope and focus. Concentrated context enables reviewers to get the required situational awareness, thereby making the feedback more useful and constructive. In addition, concentrated purposive reviews can be easily assimilated into the main codebase thereby facilitating smoother development.
4. Add Explanations
Invest time crafting descriptions by providing precise and comprehensive explanations for the code modifications that are being submitted for review. Commenting or annotating code helps capture its intent, functioning, and the reasoning behind its modifications, aiding reviewers in understanding its purpose.
Following this code review best practice streamlines the code review workflow, improves the overall quality and usefulness of feedback received, and increases engagement rates in regard to code reviews. Interestingly, multiple studies showed that reviewers appreciate a description of the code changes and want people to include descriptions more when requested to submit code for review.
Illustrate the elements simply but provide surrounding context related to the problem or task the changes try to resolve. This provides an impression of the problem resolving the concern. Describe how the modification will resolve the concern and mention how it will impact other components or functions as a cue to flag dependencies or regressions to the reviewers. Add information in regards to other documents, resources, or tickets.
5. Perform Comprehensive Evaluation Tests
For tests, verify your changes to the code with the necessary tests before submitting them for evaluation. It tends to be counterproductive both to the reviewer and the author if broken code is sent for evaluation. Validation of change helps verify if the change is working optimally so that everything is working perfectly. This has resulted in a drop in production defects which is the purpose of test driven code reviews.
Automated unit tests should be incorporated that will run on their own during the review of the code. Also execute regression tests to confirm the processes functions as required without introducing new problems. For essential parts or changes that are sensitive to performance, do not forget to carry out performance tests in the course of the code review.
6. Automated Code Reviews
In comparison to automated code review, a manual code review may take longer to complete due to human involvement in the evaluation process. In big projects or those with limited manpower, there may be bottlenecks within the code review process. The development timeline might be extended due to unnecessary wait times or red tape.
Using a tool such as Codegrip for code review automation allows for real-time feedback as well as coherency within the review processes collaboration automation accelerates responses and streamlines reviews. Grade-A automated tools ensure TM-perfection through speed; they check for grade B issues and self-resolve, leaving loopholes for experts to sort the complex grade-A problems.
Using style checkers, automated static analysis tools, and syntax analyzers can improve the quality of the code. This allows you to ensure that reviewers do not spend time commenting on issues that can be resolved automatically, which enables them to provide important insights. In turn, this will simplify the code review process, which fosters more meaningful collaboration between team members.
Use automated practices which verify compliance with accepted industry standards and internal policies on coding. Use style guidelines specific code formatting software that automatically enforces uniform styling on the code. Add automated verification for defined unit tests triggered during the code review which checks the code change’s functionality.
Set up Continuous Integration (CI) that uses automated code review processes embedded within the development workflow. CI guarantees that every code change goes through an automated evaluation prior to integration.
7. Fine-Tune Your Code Review Process by Selectively Skipping Reviews
The process of reviewing every single code piece developed by an employee juxtaposes the unique workflow of each company and can quickly gather momentum into a time intensive avalanche of redundancy slamming productivity. Depending on the structure of an organization, skipping certain code reviews may be acceptable. The guideline to disregard code reviews pertains exclusively to trivial alterations that won’t affect any logical operations. These include up-vote comments, basic formatting changes, superficial adjustments, and renaming inline variables.
More significant changes or alterations still require a review to uphold the quality of the code and to guarantee that all concerns are fixed prior to releasing potential hazards.
Set up objectives and rules around the specific criteria that will be established guiding code review bypassing. Use a grade scale to administer a risk-based code review system. Striking a review balance on complicated or pivotal code changes should take precedence over low complexity or straightforward changes. Establish limits or thresholds concerning the scale of modification, impact, or size that will require mandatory code reviews.
Presumably, any minor updates that fall below the designated threshold can be deemed exempt. While having the flexibility not conducting formal reviews, there should always be sufficient counterbalancing measures in place to ensure that there isn’t a steady stream of bypasses resulting in formal review chaos.
8. Optimize Code Reviews Using A Smaller Team Of Reviewers
Choose an optimal number of reviewers based on your code modification. The right number of reviewers is necessary; having too many can be an issue since the review could become disjointed due to little accountability. Too many code reviewers can slow workflow efficiency, communication, and productivity.
Narrowing down the reviewer list to a select few who are knowledgeable fosters precision and agility during the review process without compromising on quality.
Limit participation to those with requisite qualifications as regards the code and the changes undertaken, including knowledge of the codebase. Break down bigger teams into smaller focused teams based on modules or fields of specialization. Focused groups can manage reviews within their designated specialties.
Allow all qualified team members to be lead reviewers but set boundaries that encourage rotation to prevent review burnout. Every team member should be designated to be a lead reviewer at some time. The only role is to plan the review and merge the input for the review.
9. Clarify Expectations
There’s less confusion and better productivity when everyone knows what’s expected in a code review; developers and people reviewing the code are more productive when every aspect of the order is well understood. The overall code review’s effectiveness may be compromised with unclear expectations. Helping reviewers set firm expectations streamlined priority-based task completion and boosted overall speed for the process.
It’s vital to set and communicate expectations before the review begins, such as setting objectives for what a reviewer should achieve beyond simply looking at the code. Along with those goals, set expectations on how long the review would take. Having an estimated range will allow for the boundaries of the review to be set as well as noting which portions of the code are evaluated and which ones need the most focus.
State if the reviews are scheduled for FP (feature based), sprints, or after important changes are made to code.
Providing review authors and reviewers instruction together with defined objectives aids in reaching common goals around process productivity, along with providing proper guidance towards steps needed to work towards successful completion. Clear guidance on intended outcomes fosters better defined goals for the process which can be shared with all participants leading to sensible improvements and concrete actions, and thereby strengthening outcomes with good suggestions.
10. Add Experienced Reviewers
The effectiveness of code review is always different due to the knowledge and experience level of the specific reviewers. The review process without experienced reviewers will not be impactful as many crucial details will be missed due to the lack of informed insights. A better rate of recognition of errors improves the standard of code.
Pick reviewers who have expertise in the area affiliated with the modifications. Have seasoned developers instruct and lead review sessions for junior team members so they learn and improve. Bring senior developers and technical leads for critical and complex reviews so that their insights can be used..
Allow developers from other teams or different projects to join in on the review process because they will bring a distinct perspective. The inclusion of expert reviewers will permit shifts in the quality of responses given to the developers. Their insights are instrumental as they will tell the developer where vague problems exist, thus enforcing change.
11. Promote Learning
Make sure you involve junior reviewers in the code review process, as it fosters training and learning. Think about putting reviewers who are not familiar with the code to benefit from the review feedback. Code reviews are important from a learning perspective and without some form of motivation are often ignored.
If there is no effort aimed at learning, developers risk overlooking opportunities to gain fresh insights, adopt better industry practices, be more skilled, and advance professionally.
Ask reviewers to give better feedback with useful explanations of industry best practices, alternative methods, and gaps that can be closed. Plan to encourage discussions or presentations about knowledge that needs to be shared. More competent team members can actively mentor the less competent ones.
12. Alert Specific Stakeholders
Notifying key stakeholders like managers, team members, and team leads regarding the review process helps maintain transparency during development. Often, including too many people in the review notifications causes chaos because reviewers have to waste time figuring out whether the code review is relevant to them.
Identify stakeholders that need to be notified about the review process and manage expectations as to where reviewers decide whether to notify testers or just provide updates. Utilize tools that allow setting relevant roles for stakeholders and automate notifications via emails or texts.
Do not send notifications to everyone or scope hands, rather, limit the scope to those who actually benefit from the information at hand.
13. Submit an Advance Request
Effective scheduling of code reviews helps mitigate any possible bottlenecks in the development workflow. Review requests that are not planned may pose a challenge to reviewers since they may not have ample time to conduct a detailed analysis of the code.
Reviewers receive automatic alerts about the pending reviews well in advance which allocates specific time to their schedules for evaluation. When coding within a large team on intricate features, adjust your calendar for frequent check-in dates.
Elaborate on the timeframes of the code review to maximize efficiency and eliminate lag time. Investigate if it’s possible to implement review queues. Review queues allow reviewers to select code reviews depending on their schedule. Establish a review structure that increases predictability, benefitting both coders and reviewers.
Even during the time-sensitive review requests for critical coding that requires priority scrutiny, framework and structure are essential.
14. Accept Reviews to Synergize and Improve Further
Things like additional or different review comments tend to make many people uncomfortable due to how strange they may appear. Teams might become protective and ignore suggestions, which causes blockers to improve efforts.
Accepting feedback with an open mindset allows for code quality change to foster collaboration within the team and culture improves over time. Code feedback acceptance positivity by teams lead to increase in morale and job satisfaction as well as 20% code quality improvement which was noticed by one researcher.
Stay open to reviewer suggestions plus their reasoning, and to the points they put forth because they are worth dropping attempts to increase the code quality instead. Talk to reviewers about their suggestions or comments with the aim of clarification where needed.
Assist reviewers to sustain coded quality of their feedback and seek suggestions from impacted individuals to actively look to make posed suggestive change result maintaining high as gratitude.
15. Thank Contributors for In-Depth Review of Code Critiques
Reviewers often feel demotivated for putting time into the review and feedback process. If appreciated, it motivates them to continue engaging with the review process. Expressing thanks to reviewers not only motivates them but also helps cultivate a positive culture and willingness to engage with feedback.
Concisely, express thanks in team meetings to the respective reviewers or send a dedicated thank you to the group. Inform all of the team members to notify the reviewers on the feedback implementation after the actions and decisions are made regarding the feedback. As a form of gratitude for their hard work, periodically award small tokens of appreciation to the reviewers.
Nice piece!