How to build a good code review culture
Code reviews might feel like bumper-to-bumper traffic on your morning commute. You’re stuck. You just need to get through it in order to get to your destination.
Code reviews can sap the joy out of your day. Steal focus. Make it hard to concentrate, even if (in reality) you haven’t left your desk all morning.
As a result, you could have a tendency to try and rush through a list of pull requests. Or put them off until they threaten to get in the way of moving a feature forward. But with both approaches you’re missing an opportunity to strengthen the culture of your team.
“Code review is the discipline of discussing your code with your peers that drives a higher standard of coding,” said Prior at RailsConf.
Those discussions around code give you insight into your team, encourage knowledge sharing, and drive innovation. You’re not stuck in code reviews. They’re the path to getting unstuck.
Code reviews can be a grind. They can bring out our worst habits. But, they can also help you understand the needs of your team and forge deeper connections.
