Before we delve into code review best practices, let us understand about code review. The software quality assurance process would analyze the source code of software by an automated code review tool or manually by a team. Code review aims to find bugs, resolve errors, and improves the overall code quality.
Codebase review would ensure that every software or the latest feature developed within the company would be of high quality. It has been deemed an essential process that every software company should follow. Find below a few essential practices for reviewing code.
A code review would be different for different teams. It would be dependent on the approach requiring a little change according to the projects and members involved in the review. Find below a few points while analyzing your code.
Setting your goals and standards
Before you look forward to implementing a code review process, it would be important for you to determine your specific goals. The goal would be inclusive of acceptable coding standards in your company. It would ensure that every software product developed in the company meets your company standards. It would be important that you communicate your goals and expectations. Convey the goals and expectations to everyone in the team. Non-compliance of conveying the goals would lead to ambiguity about the outcome. When the developer knows what is required of him, it would help them complete the task easily.
Defining a code review process
Now that the goals and expectations have been set and communicated with all, it would be time to define the code review process. Having a defined code review process would assist everyone to adhere to the goal and reduce technical debt time. It would be pertinent to mention here that a good code review would require a well-defined checklist. The checklist would be important for the reviewer to ensure nothing is missed.
Annotate source code before code review
Annotation has been deemed a useful tool for the reviewer and the software development cycle. It would assist the code reviewer to understand the code in a better way along with every block of code does. They would encourage developers for adding annotations to their code.
Reviewing for 60 minutes at a time
The efficiency of a person could deplete through continuous working without taking a break. The same concept would be applicable when looking forward to the review code. Consider performing code reviews for 60 minutes max.
It would be in your best interest to establish a process for fixing defect sounds, fostering a positive code review culture, and automating to save time.
