Code Review Articles

Ian Lotinsky shares his thoughts on why Jason Cohen's 'Best Kept Secrets of Peer Code Review' book presents compelling arguments and practices for effective code review.

Redmonk's Michael Cote interviews our very own Gregg Sporar about current code review practices, tools available, and a few other development trends Gregg has been seeing, such as version control system use.

Jack Ganssle is a big believer in code review and describes how root cause analysis can be used to keep the code review process on track. And Smart Bear's Code Collaborator gets a shoutout!

Joe Lindley describes a measurement process used at Raytheon that clearly shows how peer code reviews have a predictable, positive impact on cost and quality.

The team at GNstudio shares their philosophy on code review and shows how a successful code review process is achieved in their organization. In this informative blog post, they describe their own experiences in trying out different code review practices to find what works for them and the knowledge they've gained throughout their story.

David Rubinstein argues for code reviews in this SD Times article with advice and info from our own Gregg Sporar and Klocwork's Gwyn Fisher.

Highgroove Studios shares a list of the things in their code review toolbelt.

Chad Stewart hits another home run with his useful blog post describing his thought process and rationale when reviewing code. The blog includes an excellent checklist of areas to focus on.

'In the book Jason writes about the benefits of Code Review - common practices, pitfalls and benefits. He's concise, easy to follow and the book is an enjoyable read. There are a ton of golden nuggets [read the blog for a list]. If you like what you read in this blog post, go order the book! Seriously who doesn't like a free book? You don't even have to pay for shipping! Why haven't you ordered yet?' Gavin Miller summarizes the code review benefits, principles, management tips, and best practices described in 'Best Kept Secrets'.

'You can doubt the power of a code review. You could argue that it costs more time than it saves. You would also be wrong! That's right, I'll go ahead and say it. Code reviews are an amazing way to catch potential bugs before they are born...' Chad Stewart expounds on the merits of code review.

Try this: put aside the image of code review as a meeting, or even code review as an independent activity. Limit your description of code review to: someone else is reading your code, you're discussing it together, and there's effective writing as a result. If you see those three things happening, you're seeing code review... and it's everywhere...

'There's nothing that QA has ever missed that developers didn't miss first.' Scott Belware talks about how finding problems in software is the responsibility of both development and QA.

In this insightful blog post, Conkerjo reviews 'Best Kept Secrets of Peer Code Review' and shares his thoughts on Code Collaborator and code review in general.

The latest Perforce newsletter features Part 1 of an article by Smart Bear founder Jason Cohen, imparting tips to optimize code review using Perforce. Look for Part 2 later this winter.

Robert Greiner at Cube Antics reviews Jason's talk at the Austin StackOverflow DevDay on October 14 - and he includes slides and audio too!

In this SD Times article, Andrew Binstock describes the vast improvement you can make to your code just by letting others read it, and by reading it yourself.

Mark Spritzler, Sheriff at JavaRanch, tried out Code Collaborator and shares his experiences. We're happy, but not at all surprised, that he had good things to say!

Darin Pope blogs about our book, 'Best Kept Secrets of Peer Code Review,' and the importance of 'writing the book' to show expertise on a given technology.

Another great entry from Lee Winder on the pros and cons of different code review techniques.

A great experience report from Lee Winder about what code review can bring to a project.

Vaughn Spurlin's insightful blog on using code review to improve open source projects and disseminate knowledge throughout the community.

Prasanta Mohanty kicked off an interesting discussion on LinkedIn by asking about the necessity of peer code review.

AccuRev CTO Damon Poole discusses how the AccuRev SCM and Code Collaboration integration improves software development and code review in the Database Trends and Applications 5-Min Briefing Center.

A treasure trove of information from the PerlMonks

Michael Ceranski describes the importance of doing code reviews, and specifically of doing them with the right attitude.

Jack Ganssle tells us how "inspecting code is an important group exercise that's painless if you follow etiquette and stay within its narrow scope."

Brian St. Pierre lists practical reasons for performing code reviews.

Jonathan Lange's paper from OSDC 2008 on the social effects of code review.

The seventh article in Esther Schindler's comprehensive CIO.com series on Code Review.

The sixth article in Esther Schindler's comprehensive CIO.com series on Code Review.

The fifth article in Esther Schindler's comprehensive CIO.com series on Code Review.

The fourth article in Esther Schindler's comprehensive CIO.com series on Code Review.

The third article in Esther Schindler's comprehensive CIO.com series on Code Review.

The second article in Esther Schindler's comprehensive CIO.com series on Code Review.

The first article in Esther Schindler's comprehensive CIO.com series on Code Review. Includes a wide spectrum of opinions about best practices for code review.

Guidelines for creating code review checklists and a great sample checklist for C#.

Alex Marelli from Google gives a presentation (PDF format) about why code reviews are good and how to avoid the common pitfalls. Comes from the perspective inside Google where code reviews are mandatory.

S.M. Sohan explains how iterative and incremental code reviews can acheive much of the benefit of Extreme Programming (XP) while taking less time. Although not disparaging of XP techniques, this code review technique might be more acceptable to the powers-at-be who refuse to invest in full-scale pair-programming.

A fun way to do code review over lunch by Ben Northrop. He brings up the idea that each reviewer should be looking for one class of bug, rather than everyone trying to do everything.

An on-going Q & A session over at Stackoverflow about how to tell someone their code needs improvement. This happens all the time in peer code review; you need ways of helping people improve without hurting feelings or becoming defensive.

The Mozilla foundation is known for the high quality of their software including Firefox and Thunderbird. Read their FAQ about why every change is code-reviewed, what they look for in a review, and their process that successfully allows thousands of developers to contribute code while retaining high quality and a maintainable code base.

The vibrant community over at Stack Overflow has been discussing patterns for successful peer reviews. It's nice to see Code Collaborator as the (currently) most-voted answer, but many other responses have great information.

Lynn Bender of GeekAustin.org interviewed Jason Cohen, founder of Smart Bear about why peer code review is useful, where it fits in the development process, and how to get started doing it.

Joshua Segall reacts to recent conversations by Joel Spolsky and Jeff Atwood about whether code reviews are better done off-line with a tool or together in a meeting room.

Paul Tozour writes from his own experience with code reviews as a game developer, explaining how everyone improves from review, not just junior developers, and about why on-line, no-meetings review is better than other traditional forms of review and pair-programming.

Jason Cohen from Smart Bear is the guest editor this month over at embedded.com. This article describes how to build effective peer code review checklists for software projects.

The Jolly Blogger presents a list of five commandments that make code reviews go more smoothly.

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards, PCI DSS, is something that by now, even consumers are well aware of. Those six letters can mean the difference between millions in sales for some companies, or millions in losses and fines. On June 30, there is a new revision in the PCI DSS specs, and finally there are some teeth when it comes to web security. No longer will web application security testing be an afterthought, it will become a requirement.

As part of a quality, agile process, all code at Exoweb goes through two layers of peer code review.

One developer's point of view on why peer code review is so valuable, and how typical excuses for not doing code review are faulty.

Jeff Atwood compares pair programming with lightweight code review techniques, giving pros and cons of each and concluding that you've got to do one or the other.

Microsoft MVP Robert Bogue writes about how to deal with the potentially devistating social problems that can arise from peer code review. He describes the approach and mindset for both authors and reviewers that keeps reviews positive and useful without hurting feelings.

Jeff Atwood explains why you just have to do code reviews, backing it up with comments from Steve McConnell and Karl Wiegers.

This lengthy MSDN document gives Microsoft's advice on how to do security audits on ASP.NET applications. Most of the advice is appliable to any web-based application.

Steve McConnell describes how technical code reviews affect not only software quality but how quickly you can get software to a minimum of defects.