The Art of the Code Review: How to Give and Receive Feedback
GeneralSoft Skills
Code review is where culture is built. It can be a place of learning and mentorship, or a place of ego battles and passive-aggression.
For the Reviewer: Critique Code, Not People
Bad: “You broke the build. Why didn’t you use a loop here?” Good: “This logic seems to duplicate lines 40-50. Would a loop work better here to reduce repetition?”
- Be specific: Don’t just say “Fix this.” Explain why.
- Nitpick offline: If you are arguing about variable naming conventions for 20 comments, get on a call. Or better yet, install a Linter and let the robot be the bad guy.
- Praise good code: If you see a clever solution, say “Nice implementation!”
For the Author: You Are Not Your Code
It hurts when someone tears apart a PR you spent 3 days on. But:
- Don’t take it personally. They are finding bugs in the logic, not flaws in your soul.
- Context is king. If you did something weird for a reason, add a comment explaining it before they ask.
- Gratitude: “Thanks for catching that edge case.”
The Goal
The goal of a code review isn’t to prove who is smarter. It’s to ensure that the code merging into main is maintainable, bug-free, and understood by more than just one person. A good review saves you from waking up at 3 AM for a production outage.