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Code review is ostensibly about ensuring quality code and preventing errors, bugs, and/or vulnerabilities from making their way to production systems. Code review, as practiced, is often top-down, didactic, and in many cases not particularly useful or effective. By looking at the creative writing workshop model (and strategies for teaching and providing feedback on writing), we can extract patterns that help us to have more effective, more efficient, and more enjoyable code reviews. Not only can we make our code better, we can also help our teams better understand the codebase and communicate better, and thus do more effective and enjoyable work (with perhaps better team cohesion).
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The video titled "What Poetry Workshops Teach Us about Code Review" features Andrew Ek speaking at RailsConf 2021. The talk explores how principles from poetry workshops can inform and enhance the process of code review in software development. ### Key Points Discussed: - **Background of the Speaker**: Andrew Ek, a software developer and educator, shares his experience in teaching poetry and creative writing, emphasizing the feedback mechanisms in those environments. - **Feedback Mechanisms in Writing**: Traditional feedback in educational settings often relies on grades and generalized comments, which can lack actionable insights. Ek contrasts this with more collaborative practices seen in poetry workshops. - **Peer Feedback in Workshops**: Utilizing peer feedback promotes engagement among students, allowing them to act quickly on received feedback rather than waiting for the instructor's comments, thus creating a more dynamic environment. - **Quality of Feedback**: Ek discusses the varying quality of peer feedback and the importance of receiving insights at the right level of abstraction. Effective feedback should focus on understanding and emotional impact before diving into technical details. - **Iterative Feedback**: Recording performances enables students to review their work critically, enhancing the feedback process by allowing performers to observe their impact on the audience. - **Code Review Process**: Drawing parallels to code review, Ek mentions that, similar to poetry feedback, developers must consider the readability and understandability of code, as it may not be clear to others later. - **Team Cohesion and Knowledge Sharing**: Implementing a peer review system fosters a sense of shared ownership among team members, promotes questions, and encourages collaborative improvement rather than top-down criticism. - **Practical Tips for Code Review**: - Establish a shared language and expectations among team members. - Prefer smaller changes for more effective reviews. - Balance feedback in code review to ensure fewer, more impactful comments. - Regularly audit and reflect on the code review effectiveness. ### Conclusions and Takeaways: - Emphasizing the importance of a collaborative feedback culture can improve both code quality and team dynamics. - Code reviews should aim to enhance understanding and readability of code, transforming them from mere defect-checking mechanisms to opportunities for mutual improvement and team engagement. - Pair programming is advocated as an effective method for live feedback and collaboration, complementing traditional review processes.
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