Re: Pair programming [ was: Re: [tlug] [OT] Good IT Resume

[steven smith <sjs@example.com>]

Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
> Josh Glover writes:
>
>  > Code reviews at Amazon mean sending a request with our automated
>  > review tool,
>
> That's not a "code review" as understood in the software engineering/
> consulting literature (eg, the SEI stuff, Watts Humphrey, you know).
> As used in that literature, a code review most definitely implies a
> meeting, with an assigned chair and a specific agenda.
I agree with your definition here.  But I've never worked 
anywhere that this really worked well.  The tendency I've 
seen is for people to show up unprepared.  Also the code 
reviews I've seen it work in are really "peer reviews" in 
that the programmers involved all know each other and value 
opinions of the others.  Maybe I've just seen too much 
politics in the process.
> I don't care if you wish to use a different definition of the term
> (since you gave it explicitly), but be aware that your response to
> Curt has the semantics of "at Amazon we dispense with code reviews,
> too" rather than "at Amazon we do code reviews right".
>
> If you would accept a suggestion, I would call the process you
> describe a version of "peer review".
The thing I like about the process Josh describes is that 
the person reviewing the code can do it when they have time 
and they have a uniform way to give input. Somehow meetings 
always seem to come at the worst times.  And also, my 5 
minutes worth of input could be better done as part of an 
email thread than in a meeting.  The one thing I see missing 
from the process Josh describes is feedback to me (the 
reviewer) on my comments.

The place I worked was CMM5, but somehow the CMM was more 
lip-service than adding anything to the actual quality of 
the product.  Getting notes in on what had been done took 
precedence over what we were doing.

Steve S.