{"id":2327,"date":"2019-06-19T12:08:17","date_gmt":"2019-06-19T11:08:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.michaelagreiler.com\/?p=2327"},"modified":"2020-12-07T12:34:29","modified_gmt":"2020-12-07T11:34:29","slug":"great-code-review-feedback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.michaelagreiler.com\/great-code-review-feedback\/","title":{"rendered":"How to give great code review feedback"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Code reviews are a beneficial engineering practice to ensure high-quality and maintainable code and spread knowledge amongst team members. But, the value and the benefits teams get out of code review rise and fall with the value and usefulness of the code review feedback. In this article, I show you how to give great code review feedback. The findings are backed by research and experiences of hundreds of high-performing engineering teams at Microsoft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This article is part of a large code review blog post series<\/a> you might want to check out. If you are interested in code reviews, make sure to check out my exclusive code review e-Book<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Code reviews are about problems with and the quality of the code  <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In a code review, recent code changes of one developer are inspected and discussed by other developers. The focus and goal of such a code review are to find problems with the code and to ensure the code is of high-quality. Even though code reviews provide a much broader set of benefits, such as knowledge dissemination, learning and mentoring, it is important to keep those two main goals in mind. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some team fear and some teams experience the main drawback of code reviews: reduced code velocity. This means, that the team\u2019s productivity is reduced because code reviews slow the team down. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But why is that? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The causes for reduced velocity can be manifold<\/a>, but often it has to do with long waiting times on feedback and slow response times. If this is paired with meaningless code review feedback<\/a>, code reviews become a nightmare for all involved. But teams can easily circumvent those code review pitfalls<\/a> by implementing proven best practices<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this article, I focus on the type of feedback that makes code reviews beneficial and valuable for your team.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Code review studies at Microsoft<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

At Microsoft, I have performed several studies<\/a> to understand code reviews. In one of those, we analyzed over 2 Million code review comments to understand which code review feedback is valuable<\/a>, and which is a waste of time. But let\u2019s get started with what to look for in code reviews.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What should you look for in Code reviews?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s imagine you just have been asked to review some code.\nThe code author sends you a couple of code files, with a short description of the\npurpose and type of change she or he implemented. So, now you look through the\ncode. What are you looking for? <\/p>\n\n\n\n