Four Ways to Leave a Bad Code Review
I love reviewing code. I love reading it, thinking through it, and really understanding what my fellow teammate is trying to accomplish with it.
Unfortunately, I’ve don’t always review code they way I would like to.
And while I wish that weren’t the case, the truth is that many software engineers struggle always to leave helpful and constructive code reviews. And that’s OK — we are human, after all. We might be having a bad day when you get that PR with 100 files changed, or you might have been harping on a pattern someone decides to not follow in the next. In either case, it’s OK to be an imperfect reviewer.
However, there are a few things you can keep in mind that will help you from writing that comment that creates a hurt relationship on your team. Here are a few things I have found that never go well when doing a code review that you might want to avoid:
Asking Condescending Questions
Asking questions is great! But have you ever asked a question that was sharper than a statement? The questions where you’ve already made you mind on something, but decide its better for them to figure it out on their own. The times you are asking a question just to drive home a point? Examples might include
- “Umm, how long did you spend working on…
