Code review is systematic examination of computer source code. It is intended to find mistakes overlooked in the initial development phase, improving the overall quality of software.
That’s how wikipedia describes code review but I strongly believe that code review is also a team experience if you share your findings and promote a collaborative culture.
We can use many types of code review, formal inspection, over the shoulder, tool assisted and pair-programming.
The main difference is about the time, quick feedback and real-time discussion are the winners. Your goal is to minimise the time spent into the development process and be ready to release quickly.
There is something called light touch review, it’s about inspecting only what you consider highly critical.
It’s very fast and effective but requires some rules:
- You should use automation.
- You should have a good test coverage.
- The releases are little and in scope.
- The general knowledge of project and practices is equally distributed in your team.
At this link you can find a curated list of tools to collect metrics around your code base. It can be useful to partially automate your review process.
