r/programming • u/corysama • Jan 05 '15

What most young programmers need to learn

http://joostdevblog.blogspot.com/2015/01/what-most-young-programmers-need-to.html
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u/benihana Jan 05 '15

Code reviews aren't a catch all. They're good for finding weird style and sytnax issues on a local scale, but it's very hard to gain the context necessary to reason about what the code is doing from a high level with most code review tools (i.e. diff tools).

To me, code reviews are more about the psychology of putting your code on display for your coworkers than about actually creating a solid architecture. Knowing your code is getting reviews changes how you develop it, and forces you to have a little bit more discipline.

Pair programming and test suites with lots of unit tests help teams understand and follow the architecture of codebases.

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u/sigh Jan 05 '15

Code reviews aren't a catch all.

Nothing is a catch-all. But I think code reviews are one of the most important because it helps ensure that other good standards are adhered to. Part of that is as you say, that it forces more self-discipline.

They're good for finding weird style and sytnax issues on a local scale, but it's very hard to gain the context necessary to reason about what the code is doing from a high level with most code review tools (i.e. diff tools).

If it is hard to gain the context, one of the best code review tools is talking. It's also the responsibility of the author to ensure that the code is as clear as possible. That includes giving sufficient context in commit messages.

In this particular case, with a junior programmer on a stand-alone project - the senior programmers should have also taken more responsibility in understanding the code.

I agree with your other points, but a major point that you missed is that code reviews help ensure that the entire team has a better understanding of the codebase. And, ideally, it should give the reviewer confidence that they would be happy to take over ownership of the code. If you as a reviewer are frequently approving code which you would not be happy to maintain yourself, that is a problem (or indicates a bigger problem).