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This seems like a problem that needs a cultural solution, not a technical one? Because knowing who submitted the code, I can better manage my time. E.g. if the

This seems like a problem that needs a cultural solution, not a technical one? Because knowing who submitted the code, I can better manage my time. E.g. if the submitter is known for producing high quality code, I only need to spend minimal time browsing through it. But, if the submitter is known to cut corners I can prepare myself to spend more time and review each line carefully because I most certainly will find issues.

jadedhacker 9y ago
I think it could be helpful for screening first time contributions at the very least. You're right that a cultural solution is necessary, but in the mean time one way to deal with bias when you know you are biased is to remove the ability for it to operate (when practicable). Otherwise, you're stuck in this zone where you know you're liable to make bad decisions, but you rationalise to yourself that you can correct them. No matter how you slice it, it's never going to be possible to exactly correct for your biases, you're going to undershoot or overshoot. Better to minimize their scope of operation. I really like this line of thinking because it crashes into this realm of philosophy where some people think you can feel your way to a good result, whereas the other approach is to initially intuit the just result, and rationally design a system that achieves it regardless of your instantaneous emotions. Of course, such systems thinking is very very sensitive to getting the right intuition up front, so it's very important to train it and build in feedback systems in case you start getting things you didn't expect.
jfoutz 9y ago
There is room for both. Code review of high quality code is enlightening. Some percentage should be blind. It’s a classic exploration vs exploitation trade off of your time.
zilchers 9y ago
But isn’t that sort of the issue? If you make assumptions about overall code quality, you’ll probably let smaller stylistic things slide because “this is a good coder.” I think about this in terms of some of the more contentious project (think bitcoin, this would be great for removing some of the personality clashes there).

jadedhacker 9y ago

I think it could be helpful for screening first time contributions at the very least. You're right that a cultural solution is necessary, but in the mean time one way to deal with bias when you know you are biased is to remove the ability for it to operate (when practicable). Otherwise, you're stuck in this zone where you know you're liable to make bad decisions, but you rationalise to yourself that you can correct them. No matter how you slice it, it's never going to be possible to exactly correct for your biases, you're going to undershoot or overshoot. Better to minimize their scope of operation. I really like this line of thinking because it crashes into this realm of philosophy where some people think you can feel your way to a good result, whereas the other approach is to initially intuit the just result, and rationally design a system that achieves it regardless of your instantaneous emotions. Of course, such systems thinking is very very sensitive to getting the right intuition up front, so it's very important to train it and build in feedback systems in case you start getting things you didn't expect.

jfoutz 9y ago

There is room for both. Code review of high quality code is enlightening. Some percentage should be blind. It’s a classic exploration vs exploitation trade off of your time.

zilchers 9y ago

But isn’t that sort of the issue? If you make assumptions about overall code quality, you’ll probably let smaller stylistic things slide because “this is a good coder.” I think about this in terms of some of the more contentious project (think bitcoin, this would be great for removing some of the personality clashes there).