How To Make Good Code Reviews Better
How To Make Good Code Reviews Better
Good code reviews are the bar that all of us should aim for. Starting with the obvious, checking of the code quality helps in maintaining the quality of the code and ensures that the code base is stable. As believed, looking into the quality of the code improves the engineers by setting a quality bar for them to abide by.
Along with all the above, code reviews also positively impact the technical teams and the culture of the organization. The definition of code review may vary from organization to organization in regard to the respective organization’s quality standards.
Code reviews sometimes scare away developers as it requires them to abide by the quality standards and gives them less leeway to hack their ways and get to a solution. Still, code reviews are considered to be one of the easiest ways to identify errors, typos, and mistakes. Code reviews also help in building teams and relationships at the workplace as colleagues review each other’s codes and get better and stronger together.
Recommended read: Best Practices For Reviewing Code
Areas Covered By Code Review
Good code reviews look into the perspective of how the code grows itself. Along with that, a good code review tries to fit perfectly in a codebase. It further discusses the consistency of the title of the code and reasons the “why” aspect of it. Moving on, it covers the code’s accuracy and correctness, tests the same, and ensures that the coding manuals and best practices are being followed.
Along with ensuring all the above, it also reflects improvements in regard to the readability of the code. It also takes measures to ease the entire process by understanding the nature of codes and suggest corrective solutions. Code Review makes sure that all the changes and improvements suggested have been adapted to with time.
Good vs. Better Code Reviews
Being in line with the team and keeping their morale high is another critical aspect that cannot be ignored because of code reviews. Here the language and the tone of the review come into the picture. The dogmatic and dictatorial tone of language can drop the morale of the developer and lead to in house problems and arguments.
On the other hand, a friendly, positive tone can keep peace at the workplace and lead to constructive discussions rather than offensive arguments. The two tones have different approaches that can be termed as good and better code reviews.
Instead of making powerful and assertive declarations and statements, good code reviewers pose flexible questions. They are open to discussions and alternatives and do not believe in limiting their thoughts and approaches.
Good code reviews work around finding alternatives to the situation at hand rather than criticizing and objectifying. These reviews promote clarification instead of corrections leading to healthy and lively discussions.
Better code recognizes the effort and time put in by the developer to write the code and accommodate the requested changes. These are positive reviews that bring forward acceptable and understandable solutions.
How to Make Code Reviews Better?
Some practices for better code reviews are mentioned below:
- Code review should be practiced by the entire team
Code reviews allow developers to get acquainted with codes, learn from other’s errors and explore new techniques. Organizations should not separate code writers from code reviewers as it develops an environment of “us against them.”
- Prefer Reviewing Over Coding
Always place reviewing a code above writing one. This reduces the effort of work in progress. If the developer puts the reviewing on hold and starts with a new code, the work begins to stack up leading to loss of productivity and profitability.
- Pair With the Reviewer
Code reviewing should include pair programming. Pair programming turns out to be very useful especially when it is difficult to find a solution. For the same, the best practice is to pair up with the reviewer. This reduces conflicts and eases out the reviewing process.
- Define your review goals
Finding errors is the most apparent purpose of code review. There are various objectives and guidelines to abide by while writing and reviewing the code which changes from project to project. From code style guides to code features, there are numerous factors that define a good or a bad code for a particular project.
Use of Automated Code Review Tools
In manual code reviewing, the person-in-charge is required to go through each line of the written code to find vulnerabilities. This process is not just time-consuming but is not very efficient too. Even humanly impossible too.
Automated code reviewing has certainly predetermined, set rules and specifications that every code needs to pass through. Various software tools are developed to provide assistance and display a list of coding standards and regulations. The following are some of the benefits offered by automated code reviews over manual code reviews.
- Time-efficient
An automated code review tool like Codegrip is a lot quicker than the manual process. These tools are capable of reading thousands of lines of codes in seconds. With the efficiency of time, the focus on the manual review can move to business logic and understanding intentions.
- Cost-efficient
The personnel that reviews the code does not necessarily require specific skills and knowledge about code reviews. Code reviews can be integrated as part of the deployment making code reviews a natural add-on to the process. Proactive fixing of issues leads to lesser chances of costly mistakes later.
- Small errors and mistakes are identified
Subtle errors and mistakes that can be ignored while manually reviewing the code can be easily caught by the automated tool. From intricate errors to complex ones, all mistakes can be identified by the automated code review tool Codegrip.
There are various automated code reviewing tools available today. These vary because of certain specifications and features that each has to offer. CodeGrip that analyses your code and scans it for any security issues. It finds out code vulnerabilities and shows them separately from other issues also found like code smells and bugs.
All code vulnerabilities are noted separately under a tab and also pointed in your code. You can use the suggested solution to find out what changes you can do to remove the security vulnerabilities. CodeGrip makes sure that your code stays strong during attacks and without any security vulnerability.
Conclusion
With the above arguments, it is clear as to how important is the process of code reviewing for the successful functioning of a company. Maintain the quality standards of your codes and keep growing!
Now you can get started with automating your code review process.
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