Adam Dangoor - Another pair of eyes: Reviewing code well
Channel: EuroPython Conference
Date: 2016-08-04

Adam Dangoor - Another pair of eyes: Reviewing code well
[EuroPython 2016]
[21 July 2016]
[Bilbao, Euskadi, Spain]
(https://ep2016.europython.eu//conference/talks/another-pair-of-eyes-reviewing-code-well)

Many of us have been taught to code, but we know that software
engineering jobs are so much more than that.
Programmers can spend 5-6 hours per week on code review, but doing
that is almost ignored as a skill.
How many of us have seen poor reviews, which don't catch bugs, make
people feel bad or block important features being merged?
An introduction to what code review is alongside guidelines, tips,
tricks and anecdotes to help make your code reviews be as productive
as possible.

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Many of us have been taught to code, but we know that software
engineering is so much more than that. Programmers can spend 5-6 hours
per week on code review, but doing that is almost ignored as a skill,
and instead it is often treated as a rote chore.

How many of us have seen poor reviews - those which upset people,
don't catch bugs or block important features being merged? This talk
explores the social and technical impacts of various code review
practices as well as helpful tooling. The goal is to provide a
structure to help improve how teams review code, and to introduce the
costs and benefits of code review to anyone unfamiliar with the
practice.

There are always trade-offs to be made - e.g. think how costly a
security flaw in this code could be to your organisation - perhaps
intense scrutiny is not necessary for prototypes soon to be thrown
away. It is useful to consider the  trade-offs in order to optimise
for a particular problem domain. Perhaps right now it is more
important to look for issues with maintainability, functionality or
performance.

I talk about how some fantastic code reviews from mentors, colleagues
and strangers have helped me become a better programmer and team
member, as well as occasions where code review has been detrimental by
slowing things down and causing arguments.

This is aimed at everyone from beginner to advanced programmers.