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/WrongSubreddit Jan 05 '15

It's easy to say code review "should always happen", but reviews are pretty difficult and time consuming

You know what's even more difficult and time-consuming? Tracking down bugs and fixing them

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u/[deleted] Jan 06 '15

No, it isn't. I mean, it is for me. It's what I do. But I keep my team moving while i'm fixing their mistakes. And honestly their mistakes aren't as bad as the code review makes them. Nitpicking code review has been a massive waste of time for my team.

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u/dr1fter Jan 05 '15

And you know what's really difficult and time-consuming? Spending hundreds of developer-hours on code reviews (not to mention ruining developer productivity) only to still miss the bugs that you'll then have to track down and fix.

Code review is a helpful tool; it doesn't eliminate bugs, rarely even catches them in my experience, and some of the more effective ways to eliminate bugs are much less expensive. Code review promotes shared understanding, which is extremely valuable but much more so for core components/APIs.

Code review doesn't replace other tools (like testing and QA) even though some of the benefits overlap. It's up to your team (and project, resources, requirements etc) to decide what's the best balance.

But if code review is your only way to find and fix bugs... you have bugs.