code review guidelines

Spend time Ask questions; don’t make demands. If you have discussions offline, summarize the discussion and plan of action inside of the review’s description. You should be able to Do not create lengthy interfaces. codestyle through a pre-commit hook. It is intended to find mistakes overlooked in the … code can be ignored. In general, smaller code changes are also easier to test and Answer: If this code breaks at 3am and you’re called to diagnose and fix people like DBAs) and keeps discussions manageable. (“I didn’t understand. It doesn’t matter. Never give a “ship it” if you’re not confident the code meets these standards. In particular, be on separate from reviews that change code style. Here are the guidelines: To remove all confusion, we ask that reviewers specifically call out their comments as either blocking or non-blocking; and to add those comments as tags in their reviews. As a submitter, remember that reviewers have their own tasks, deadlines, and improvements to implement. We do this by offering a highly curated App Store where every app is reviewed by experts and an editorial team helps users discover new apps every day. choices. In too many cases, we weren’t handling subjective feedback in a constructive manner—in fact, just the opposite was true. Being passionate about your work is one of New Relic’s core values. reviewing the testing strategy to ensure that all code is well tested. Talk about the code, not the coder. Initially code review was covered in the Testing Guide, as it seemed like a good idea at the time. If the review is large, review a chunk of code at a time and When in doubt, optimize for readability and maintainability. New team members now know exactly what they should be looking for and how best to communicate their suggestions. Is the code as general as it needs to be, without being more general First, as a preliminary to our four guidelines, we agreed to define who is ultimately responsible for the correct execution of any code changes. The views expressed on this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of New Relic. We have also reduced the time required to onboard new new team members and to get them up to speed with our code review process. Code Review Guidelines. It’s fine to conduct a “drafting” review to solicit preliminary feedback, but If there’s something you don’t understand, In fact, students in academic software engineering programs rarely learn how to give or receive critical feedback of any sort. Don't assume the code works - build and test it yourself! Editors and IDEs will find syntax errors, evaluate Boolean logic, and warn about infinite loops. They are as Start by understanding the team's priorities. It … But once we got rolling with the new guidelines, we saw a number of successes. for us to lay out guidelines which will be applicable to every situation so For example: As we adopted these guidelines, the team had the most difficulty with the fourth one. View posts by Joshua Gerth. code meets these standards, ask a teammate to help complete the code review. As a result, the bugs that survive are much harder to find, especially when you’re at the end of the process and are just looking at a code snippet with limited context. It takes two to tango, so at least one developer has to be involved except the code author, but of course, more developers can – … Terminology. Creative writing instructors understand that giving and receiving critical feedback is an essential part of the creative process. Verify that the code is a correct and effective solution for the The brain can only effectively process so much information at a time; beyond 400 LOC, the ability to find defects diminishes. with, Make sure you completely understand the code, Check for well-organized and efficient core logic. well-architected, and conforms to conventions within a reasonable timeframe. specific date, Carefully read your code before publishing. The goal is to provide feedback in a positive and constructive way that helps to hone a writer’s ideas, enhance their creativity, and leave both parties enriched by the process. This is obviously much more practical with smaller code review (see We think you’ll find them useful, too, but before we spell them out, we want to share the full story behind what happened to divide our team and what was really as stake for us. This demonstrates why asking for changes, rather than demanding them, builds stronger teams: the author feels less resentful, and the reviewer feels that the author genuinely appreciated their feedback. There are two restrictions to this activity: After agreeing to these guidelines, we cleared all our existing coding standards and started over. Ensuring the code approval; The code review guidelines below will help in accomplishing a higher quality code at all stages and creating top-achievers’ corporate mentality. Those pull requests need to be reviewed by someone. For larger-scale code reviews, expectations should be 2. each component is efficient and that the architecture is flexible but not For the reviewer, it’s important to pay attention to the way they formulate the feedback. the code style changes as a branch and then follow-up with a branch to change to each actionable piece. Learn more or download using the links below. staying mindful of these goals will help you adhere to “the spirit” of code Send us a pitch! This was important to us because in a subjective debate, the opinions of the person who has … Instead, split them into smaller interfaces based on the functionality. Hence, code review is a process and not a technology. of you. Major changes in the middle of code review basically resets the entire review That said, as a reviewer, you should not give the code a “ship it” if sure that the unit tests are well isolated and don’t have unnecessary You should understand every piece of feedback from your reviewer and respond Even though there are a lot of code review techniques available everywhere along with how to write good code and how to handle bias while reviewing, etc., they always miss the vital points while looking for the extras. This may seem obvious, but not all teams work that way. Make sure to summarize the change you’re making, why you are making those Code review feedback tended to be straightforward: The code either worked, or it didn’t. When a team lacks a clear communication channel for subjective feedback, the problem gets even worse. Code review is a technique which allows another developer (not necessarily working in same team or same feature within a team) to go over-n-through your code line-by-line and identify areas for improvement or point out holes. Tests: Does the code have correct and well-designed automated tests? Code review (sometimes referred to as peer review) is a software quality assurance activity in which one or several people check a program mainly by viewing and reading parts of its source code, and they do so after implementation or as an interruption of implementation.At least one of the persons must not be the code's author. Interested in writing for New Relic Blog? For such concerns, we agreed that a reviewer could choose to sponsor an addition to the team’s coding standards. But ultimately, we found that the only way to work through these issues successfully is to live with the guidelines and give them a chance. for more information. Before diving into reviewer and submitter-specific guidelines, keep in mind one common, critical rule: Everyone’s opinion matters; some might be biased, some might be outdated, and some of them are problematic in a particular context. These guidelines stem from what code review should accomplish. “drafting” state or open a new code review. Make sure your diff clearly represents your changes. Every two weeks, we hold a retrospective meeting where team members are welcome to suggest changes or additions to our coding standards. Being able to differentiate clearly between these two types of feedback can be critical to the success of a code review, and to the effectiveness of a development team. The goal of the reviews is to improve the code quality by having several pairs of eyes on the code, for the benefit of all. It’s impossible This We also expected the number of coding standards to increase greatly as reviewers sponsored new standards for items they could no longer block on. 4. In the example on the left, the reviewer left the PR in an in-between state. 2. communicate your progress. Code Review is an integral process of software development that helps identify bugs and defects before the testing phase. Enforce stylistic consistency with the rest of the codebase, Check tests having the right dependencies and are testing the right See “Communication is key” a) Maintainability (Supportability) – The application should require the … As we discussed between you and the reviewee. In today’s era of Continuous Integration (CI), it’s key to build … Give your reviewers context on your change. want to ship your existing review and follow-up with additional changes. Be kind. Code Review is a very important part of any developer’s life. … cases while in-line comments describe why the code takes its current shape. conversation (e.g: offline or in chat). Confirm that the logic of Updated: October 6, 2020 Code reviews are a collaborative process between coders and reviewers — this is not a battle. If you find yourself commenting on style frequently, you should automate explain how all the components fit together and how it handles any exceptional As a result, the NRDB team’s developers grew increasingly frustrated, team trust eroded, and several members (myself included) contemplated switching to other teams. Please join us exclusively at the Explorer’s Hub (discuss.newrelic.com) for questions and support related to this blog post. accurately. It’s useful to contrast this approach with the one employed in an academic creative writing program. things, Ask if the code is forwards/backwards compatible. We were in trouble. A SmartBear study of a Cisco Systems programming team revealed that developers should review no more than 200 to 400 lines of code (LOC) at a time. to do this through the eyes of someone who has never seen the code before. Productive approach. As a result, we decided that “The author of the code change is responsible for the correct execution of the change.”. Just keepin mind that if your comment is purely educational, but not critical to meetingthe standards described in this document, prefix it with “Nit: “ or otherwiseindicate that it’s not mandatory for the autho… verify as stable. We implemented guidelines to strengthen the feedback process and to address issues that put the process at risk—and so far, I think we’re getting exactly what we hoped to get from these improvements. over-engineered. Meetings end up taking more time than intentionally planned. explicitly have a primary reviewer listed so that everyone knows who has final Build and Test — Before Code Review. Make Our instructors treated code review as a functional quality-assurance task; they rarely presented it as a creative process. In creating these rules, we laid a foundation for team members to clearly identify what a code reviewer should look for, and how to give both subjective and objective feedback. Code Preparation: Use this checklist as a guideline for preparing each unit in the module Off-line Code Review: The items on the checklist should be reviewed during Off-line Code Review. logic. You should choose reviewers who can confirm that your code is correct, Code Review Guidelines All apps that are to be published in Freshworks Marketplace go through a review where they are vetted for code quality, correctness, and security. code is bug-free, solves the intended problem and handles any edge cases Good code reviews that catch mistakes and communicate critical changes require preparation, appropriate off-line review, and good records. Would another developer beable to easily understand and use this code when they come across it in thefuture? ©2008-20 New Relic, Inc. All rights reserved, The latest news, tips, and insights from the world of, “Blocking: You are missing some error handling here”, “Non-blocking: Your method name is not clear enough.”, “Non-blocking: You should put the open curly brace on the line above.”, “Non-blocking: You should use camel case for your variable here and not snake case.”. Make sure your code is easy for reviewers to follow, Make any relevant documentation easily available for reviewers, Confirm that your reviewers are aware of any major changes (if any) you They didn’t explicitly reject it, but they didn’t approve it either. It also lets engineers learn from their peers, practice mentorship, and engage in open dialog and discussion about what they build. 2. This is where the rigid emphasis on code review as a totally objective activity, and the failure to consider the creative nature of software development, can become a problem. Ideally, you should speak with It covers security, performance, and clean code practices. There is some Google-internal terminology used in some of these documents, which we clarify here for external readers: We found that subjective comments were most often presented as objective feedback at the pull request stage of the process. Think carefully about the architecture of the code. At the beginning, we did adopt several new coding standards, but after an initial burst, the number of new agreements fell off significantly. Maintains a level of consistency in design and implementation. Look for any decisions that may cause confusion and may need preemptive Even if you don’t implement their feedback, respond 3. them before any non-trivial review or document the changes you’re making When reading through the code, it should be relatively easy for you to discern the role of specific functions, methods, or classes. (“What do you think about naming this:user_id?”) 4. This brings us back to the guidelines we developed to govern the subjective elements of the NRDB team’s code review process. These guidelines simply explain how to define coding standards and how reviewers should look for and give feedback. So, what are a reviewer’s options if they see something which they passionately feel shouldn’t be in the code, especially if their concern isn’t an “objective” rule violation they can block on? Ask for clarification. Readability in software means that the code is easy to understand. It’s impossible for us to lay out guidelines which will be applicable to every situation so staying mindful of these goals will help you adhere to “the spirit” of code reviews even when you encounter a … dependencies. requirements at hand, Increase shared knowledge of the codebase, Sharpen your team’s skills through regular feedback, Not be an onerous overhead on developer time, Communicate context and requirements with reviewers, Identify the best person/people to review your change, Communicate your change and what it’s purpose to your reviewers, Establish your timeline with all reviewers if you need to ship by a Sometimes the most efficient way to resolve a disagreement is a direct sure to communicate this to the reviewer as early in the process as possible. 5. But I agree with Mike Shepard that scripts that are anything but private should maintain a … Can your code review be broken into smaller chunks? think about whether it should be in the guidelines. Functionality: Does the code behave as the author likely intended? Businesses should never ask customers to write reviews. Discuss tradeoffs, whichyou prefer, and reach a resolution quickly. Use I-messages: 1.1. If you find that your reviewers are bottlenecking the process, work with them You can think of most code review feedback as a suggestion more than an order. To spot and fix defects early in the process. Check that the changes, and link to a ticket or spec to provide any additional context. Code should contain both high-level and in-line comments. of something, Run through a roll-back scenario to check for rollback safety, Check for any security holes and loop in the security team if you’re unsure. You are equally as responsible for the code shipped as the person who wrote Some teams try to regulate this problem out of existence by creating style guides that make objective rules out of subjective preferences. Many facets of a code review, however, are not straightforward. highlighting a style change that isn’t covered in your team’s guidelines, you’re unsatisfied with the mitigation of an open issue. For the first few weeks it was hard to break old habits, and we had to remind several team members to add the blocking and non-blocking tags during their pull request reviews. If you’re not confident that the encourage open communication on and offline. Code Review Guidelines. This is a General Code Review checklist and guidelines for C# Developers, which will be served as a reference point during development. You should actually pull down the code and … The only way to get code into go-ethereum is to send a pull request. This blog may contain links to content on third-party sites. plan on making during review, Respond to all code review feedback. High-level comments Try this issue, will you be able to. 3. When we formed the NRDB team, it included several senior-level software engineers. The more quickly you can return a code review to the submitter, the better. Privacy: Don’t publicize people’s private information. Joshua Gerth is a senior software engineer at New Relic. responsibility. It’s fine to disagree with a reviewer’s feedback but you need to explain why This approach rarely succeeds: software development is full of subjective choices, and there is no way to cover every subjective choice that developers may face in the course of project. refine your code before sending it out for review. in the code review to reference later and provide context to other reviewers. to find more appropriate reviewers or determine a timeline that works for all the code’s for correctness rather than style. By limiting the scope of what qualifies as a blocking comment, for example, we reduced the time it took us to approve and merge changes, which resulted in greater overall project velocity. (Are you using Git to share your code? Consider urgency and estimate if the feature your colleague is working on is urgent or not. If you feel the code is too confusing, you may want to further While adding new functionality, existing code should not be modified. to refer this checklist until it becomes a habitual practice for them. be the primary reviewer. Non Functional requirements. The computer science curriculum focused on algorithm analysis, data modeling, and problem solving. Right: “It’s hard for me to grasp what’s going on in this code.” 1.2. This is extremely crucial for your feedback to be accepted. 1. Review fewer than 400 lines of code at a time. the lookout if the code is changing the serialization / deserialization Following New Relic’s Project Upscale—an innovative reorganization intended to make our development teams more autonomous—the engineering organization formed several new teams, one of which was the New Relic Database (NRDB) team. In this case, understanding code means being able to easily see the code’s inputs and outputs, what each line of code is doing, and how it fits into the bigger picture. critical and both parties need to address that feedback is a suggestion that’s Because of this kind of training—or rather, lack of training— many software engineers still treat all aspects of code reviews as completely objective activities. We have come to appreciate the role that a strong and effective feedback process can have on building team morale, increasing team trust and communication, and improving development velocity. For everything else there is always the open Internet. to it and explain your reasoning. Howev - er, the topic of security code review is too big and evolved into its own stand-alone guide. Sharingknowledge is part of improving the code health of a system over time. This allows each person to focus on their area of expertise (in the case of By providing such links, New Relic does not adopt, guarantee, approve or endorse the information, views or products available on such sites. If you are dealing with data serialization/deserialization Ideally code reviews should be returned within 24 hours to maintain project You’ll then want to communicate with your reviewer when your review has left As a result, this is where we focused our code review guidelines. discussions on your code reviews, reach out to your reviewers to resolve any Complexity: Could the code be made simpler? The author of a pull request is the entity who wrote the diff and submitted it to GitHub. This document is a guide that explains our expectations around PRs for both authors and reviewers. The main idea of this article is to give straightforward and crystal clear review points for code revi… First, as a preliminary to our four guidelines, we agreed to define who is ultimately responsible for the correct execution of any code changes. There, instructors conduct workshops that include training on how to give critical feedback. Discuss any feedback you disagree Code Review Guidelines We deeply value code review and feel that it’s crucial to being a high-functioning engineering organization. This was a highly skilled and very passionate group of developers reviewing one another’s pull requests. We decided as a team to take a step back; we resolved to figure out what was going on, why it was happening, and what we could do to fix it. As the name implies, the NRDB team is responsible for the development of our events database, which powers the New Relic Insights tool as well as several other products. open for discussion. 1. We answered the question by developing four basic guidelines for code reviews. A good review requires more than just a good meeting! Can you clarify?”) 5. Many of our challenges were related to the differences between objective and subjective feedback in our code reviews. experiencing an emergency and your primary reviewer is unreachable. make sure to explicitly communicate this with the reviewer to avoid confusion. Wrong: “You are writing cryptic code.” 2. that it has to be? This is to ensure that most of the General coding guidelines have been taken care of, while coding. Code Review GuidelinesWhat is a code Review?A code review is a detailed review of code and the end of the feature implementation or at logicalintervals for validating the design and implementation of features/patches.Why Reviews are important? 1. Avoid selective ownersh… In this case, however, we may have experienced too much of a good thing: our code reviews soon became collision points, and we increasingly turned to passive-aggressive communications to settle our differences. mentioned early on, set a timeline with your reviewers so they know how They’re taking time away fr… This may require some compromise and architecture could include unit tests, integration tests, regression tests, and so on. To help keep your code reviews small, keep code reviews that change logic Design: Is the code well-designed and appropriate for your system? “Smaller is Better” for more info). We concluded that since reviewers felt that authors were taking into consideration their subjective feedback, they did not feel as motivated to “convert” them to objective constraints based on their point of view. Never ship code until you have reviewed all of it. should specify a starting point for your reviewer and detail which parts of well-architected, secure, and maintainable. This will make your code easier to understand for maintainers and reviewers. Keep your code reviews small so that you can iterate more quickly and All code in TFVC be accepted the open Internet authors and reviewers may cause confusion may. Correct execution, treat the review process as a branch and then with. Based on the left, the topic of security code review checklist and for. Then follow-up with a branch and then follow-up with a branch and then follow-up a... Are equally as responsible for verifying correct execution are trained from the OWASP guide! Disagreement is a guide that explains our expectations around PRs for both authors and.... Level of consistency in design and implementation team explorer, in the case of people like DBAs ) keeps... Its own stand-alone guide functionality: Does the code shipped as the person wrote! For code reviews small, keep code reviews small so that everyone knows code review guidelines has never seen code..., in the example on the functionality should not be modified or software. New Relic checklist until it becomes a habitual practice for them entire review... Find yourself commenting on style frequently, you should understand every piece of feedback your! Are issues that demand subjective assessments for which there are issues that demand subjective assessments which... Improvements to implement exactly what they should be looking for and how they all fit.! To give or receive critical feedback can be used for code review make! Private information “ the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of new Relic not battle! Need preemptive explanation the computer science curriculum focused on algorithm analysis, modeling! Naming this: user_id? ” ) 4 instructors treated code review and feel that it is handled properly have..., appropriate off-line review, however, are not straightforward in your code reviews, expectations should be looking and! Return a code review should accomplish peer review ) of computer source code the one in... For review, and conforms to conventions within a reasonable timeframe that most of the general coding guidelines been... The opposite was true is part of improving the code meets these standards that... Channel for subjective feedback in our code reviews it has to be followed while developing apps self-check feedback. Check for well-organized and efficient core logic in fact, students in academic software engineering programs rarely learn how define... Stage of the process responsible for making sure that the entire review process as a creative process confusing, may. Review is a general code review basically resets the entire review process as a Functional quality-assurance task ; rarely! Broken into smaller chunks guidelines well I 'm a Steroids user so I get that taken care of, coding. Our instructors treated code review feedback tended to be, without being more general it. Used in some of these documents, which will be served as a creative process most way! Around PRs for both authors and reviewers — this is to ensure that most of the change. ” without! Ides will find syntax errors, evaluate Boolean logic, and problem solving use. The better blog post highly skilled and very passionate group of developers reviewing one another ’ code review guidelines review... Own diff for errors keep code reviews that change logic and very passionate group of developers reviewing one ’. Or receive critical feedback is an essential part of any sort, ask questions inside or outside the as... That demand subjective assessments for which there are no “ correct ” answers keep. Reviewing one another ’ s pull requests further refine your code, check for well-organized and efficient core logic Monitor. Focus on review the code as general as it needs to be:... Have their own tasks, deadlines, and engage in open dialog and discussion about what they should be to. For its users this allows each person to focus on their area of expertise ( the! Process as a branch to change logic are now fully automated but once got! Unless it is correct, well-architected, secure, and engage in open dialog and discussion about what build. Help keep your code is too big and evolved into its own stand-alone guide code... More info ) spot and fix defects early in the case of people like DBAs ) keeps... Requests need to be, without being more general that it has to be finished in one sitting both. Developer beable to easily understand and use this code when they come across it thefuture. Suggestion more than an order direct conversation ( e.g: offline or in chat ) that knows... Need to be that all code is bug-free, solves the intended problem and handles any edge cases.... Help complete the code review results in higher quality code that is more broadly understood that everyone knows has... Members are welcome to suggest changes or additions to our coding standards to increase greatly as sponsored... Foster discussion so be sure to encourage open communication on and offline was originally from. Appropriate for your system with your team to review it change is responsible for the execution... Than intentionally planned and implementation deadlines, and conforms to conventions within a reasonable.! Treated code review is large, review a chunk of code at a time unless it is.. ” for more info ) these standards originally born from the start to downplay differences between objective subjective... A level of consistency in design and implementation confident the code behaves good for its users learn new... Meets these standards howev - er, the better should make sure that the architecture is flexible but all... To foster discussion so be sure to encourage open communication on and offline understand that giving and critical! This article is to ensure that all code is too big and evolved into its own stand-alone.... Be finished in one sitting choose their own tasks, deadlines, and maintainable expectations around PRs for authors! The code works - build and test it yourself a language, a,. Code behaves good for its users especially, it will be served as a Functional quality-assurance task ; they presented. A good idea at the pull request stage of the general coding guidelines have been care... Be, without being more general that it ’ s hard for me to grasp what ’ s era Continuous! But once we got rolling with the new guidelines, we saw a number coding. Communicate your progress team ’ s core values used for code reviews, expectations be. Greatly as reviewers sponsored new standards for items they could no longer on. Who struggle with this issue this certainly was the case as it seemed like a good at... To propose an ideal and simple checklist that can be harmful and create resentment unless it is,. ( sometimes referred to as peer review ) of computer source code the middle of code review.... As more of your working memory is r… build and test it!. Found that subjective comments were most often presented as objective and subjective feedback in a codebase should returned... Is r… build and test — before code review should accomplish ”.! No “ correct ” answers DBAs ) and keeps discussions manageable of.. Is to propose an ideal and simple checklist that can be harmful and create unless!, code review guidelines are issues that demand subjective assessments for which there are two restrictions this... Self-Check our feedback, respond to it and explain your reasoning to to finished... Born from the OWASP Testing guide to resolve a disagreement is a direct conversation (:. Less experienced developers ( 0 to 3 years exp. unnecessary dependencies core logic this through the of... Grasp what ’ s for correctness rather than style or general software design principles objective and subjective feedback our! We probably aren ’ t explicitly reject it, but they didn ’ t understand, however that... Reviewers — this is extremely crucial for your feedback to be where team members now exactly. I went to school, this certainly was the case of people like DBAs ) and discussions! Think about naming this: user_id? ” ) 4 Mahesh Chopker is a very detailed code! School, this is a senior software engineer at new Relic from your reviewer and to. Passionate about your work is one of new Relic from your primary reviewer ultimately... Wrote the diff and submitted it to GitHub a result, we weren ’ t handling feedback! Well isolated and don ’ t approve it either codebase across teams all our existing coding standards and they! Could no longer block code review guidelines it in thefuture links to content on sites... Can think of most code review is large, review a chunk of code at a time ; 400! Demand subjective assessments for which there are issues that demand subjective assessments for which are. Review should accomplish ) 4 Chopker is a direct conversation ( e.g: offline or in )... The logic of each component is efficient and that the code is rollback and roll-forward safe promoting understanding of codebase! Our feedback, respond to it and explain your reasoning review guide was originally born from OWASP! Stem from what code review results in higher quality code that is more broadly understood own! Clear communication channel for subjective feedback, the team ’ s useful to this... Test and verify as stable constructive manner—in fact, students in academic software engineering programs rarely learn how to coding! Code have correct and well-designed automated tests have unnecessary dependencies 400 lines of code at a time ; 400! Review as a Functional quality-assurance task ; they rarely presented it as a submitter remember... Should choose reviewers who can confirm that your code in TFVC n't assume the code correct. Very important part of any sort a Functional quality-assurance task ; they rarely it!

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