Interesting. I would caution that some of the tips are very culture-dependent. For instance, the example of not criticizing the person - I would rather have someone tell me straight in my face "Your approach is adding unnecessary complexity" than go around in circles and word-dancing around it, I would appreciate the honesty and the respect for my time (the 2nd way of phrasing is longer. but more importantly -I had to read it twice to understand the message).
Couldn't agree more, thanks very much! For anyone interested in my (much less concise) take on code reviews, please take a look at a blog post I write a while back: https://medium.com/palantir/code-review-best-practices-19e02780015f .
Simple and concise tips!
ReplyDeleteInteresting.
ReplyDeleteI would caution that some of the tips are very culture-dependent. For instance, the example of not criticizing the person - I would rather have someone tell me straight in my face "Your approach is adding unnecessary complexity" than go around in circles and word-dancing around it, I would appreciate the honesty and the respect for my time (the 2nd way of phrasing is longer. but more importantly -I had to read it twice to understand the message).
I suspect that it's possible to follow the advice (don't target the author, but the code) without unnecessary complexification of the comment:
Delete"I don't think the complexity this adds is worth the result."
"[specific thing] is unnecessarily complex."
Couldn't agree more, thanks very much! For anyone interested in my (much less concise) take on code reviews, please take a look at a blog post I write a while back: https://medium.com/palantir/code-review-best-practices-19e02780015f .
ReplyDelete