Most developers have heard that peer code reviews can do wonders to a codebase.

But not all types of code reviews are effective.

Some code

Better Code Reviews

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2022-09-29 19:00:34

Most developers have heard that peer code reviews can do wonders to a codebase. But not all types of code reviews are effective. Some code reviews seem to go on and on forever, while others pick at syntax and formatting, but miss major bugs that somehow end up in production!

We have one dev who just blindly thumbs-up every PR and rarely leaves comments. That person is attempting to game the rule of “at least two approvals”. It is easy to tell, because inside of one minute they will suddenly have approved 5–6 PRs. I would fire this person for this alone were it in my power.

I find that the 2nd or 3rd reviewer is often more likely to rubber stamp after seeing one approval. Perhaps blind reviews (minus comments left?) could be helpful?

Especially long PR’s take longer to be reviewed, which is an issue because they have the most effect on future branches/PRs/merges.

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