4 ms·

It depends on both the person and the environment. In an environment that places stress on those who underperform, anything that calls attention to performance

It depends on both the person and the environment. In an environment that places stress on those who underperform, anything that calls attention to performance problems will be hated. Anyone that points out those problems will be disliked. Even the best people will fall to this stress. In a more relaxed environment that isn't constantly counting points towards raises and promotions, people can relax and not worry about the problems that are raised. However, not everyone can manage this. Some people have just had too many jobs of the previous type, or other experiences like that. They just can't adjust. IMO, it also means they have a much harder time fixing their own problems because they can't tolerate other people pointing out those problems. As for code reviews, I always call it like I see it. It's my job to make sure the code will work and be secure. I'm not going to let things slip by that violate that, no matter how much I want that person to be happy. And I'll still point out matters of style as well, though I usually won't insist they be corrected, unless the person has repeatedly had the same problem. (My people are generally great, though, and will fix even my suggestions. So it's generally not a thing.) You'd probably hate that last bit of my code reviews. If we were on a team, my advice would be to simply discuss that part with me in real time. We could decide together if it was worth the effort to make those changes. Async communications like PRs and emails simply aren't fit for that kind of discussion.

hinkley 6y ago
It also depends if everyone else pointed out 2 things and you pointed out 10. Letting other people go first means you only have to point out 5, which is still lopsided but not 'holy shit, man' lopsided.
nicoburns 6y ago
> In an environment that places stress on those who underperform, anything that calls attention to performance problems will be hated. Anyone that points out those problems will be disliked. Even the best people will fall to this stress. Seems to me that this might be the problem rather than the code review itself! > We could decide together if it was worth the effort to make those changes. Async communications like PRs and emails simply aren't fit for that kind of discussion. Indeed. I've definitely found myself falling into a pattern of failing the review for serious issues with comments on the PR, but just approving the review and slacking the comments for small issues.
- Person5478 6y ago
  This is probably my biggest beef with the "culture" of software development nowadays. Back in my day (hold on while I go grab my cane...) software developers would just flap their lips and sound would come out at each other. Nowadays there seems to be this underlying assumption that actually talking to each other is a waste of time, that it should all be documented with no curation, and should always be in PR's, et al. I'm all for documenting decisions, but I feel like it's not too much effort to swing by someone's office and have a discussion with them. At that point, maybe you don't even need to document if the updates are small issues. Is it really so all-encompassingly important? But maybe I'm just old. Most of the time I'd rather talk to a human when I call into tech support too (unless it's something obviously automated like making a payment).
  - nicoburns 6y ago
    > I feel like it's not too much effort to swing by someone's office and have a discussion with them Well there is a modern trend that's supposed to help with this too: open plan offices. No need to swing by their office, they're already right there (this has indeed been my working environment for most of my career). It's all a bit different at the moment of course, but my team regularly video calls each other to discuss things that would take too long over text.
user5994461 6y ago
>>> In an environment that places stress on those who underperform, anything that calls attention to performance problems will be hated. This is so missing the point of development. What do developers do? They write code and they ship code. (we could say that they deliver features or business value rather than code but that's not the point). Code review is effectively preventing them to work. A bunch of comments on a PR, with no approval in sight, is very effectively blocking any progress on their work and making their project late. Of course they're going to hate that.
- edudobay 6y ago
  I can't tell if the previous comment was ironic, but it seems to me that developers seeing things that way is a sign of immaturity or unprofessionalism. Why must developers write and ship code? To deliver a certain goal / feature / business value. If all they're willing to do is writing and shipping code without considering how will that software work in the future, what problems it might have, how hard it will be to make changes to it, they're not being responsible enough about their work. Software in general (except for throwaway code) is not supposed to work only NOW — it is expected to work for a long time, with an acceptable degree of quality, and with changing requirements. If, to build a wall, it takes longer than just laying some bricks, it is because a solid wall serves many more purposes than some layers of bricks.
  - redis_mlc 6y ago
    > I can't tell if the previous comment was ironic, but it seems to me that developers seeing things that way is a sign of immaturity or unprofessionalism. It's not ironic, it's the new snowflake culture. It's pervading HN too. I made a comment a couple months ago about respecting the result of an election, and one reply was, "Yeah but what if you lose and you don't accept the result?" It was bizarre.
  - bluGill 6y ago
    What does the business really want? If it is more or less worming code, or perfect code? Or somewhere in the vast continum between? Code review is one tool in a large set to get closer to perfect. However if the business doesn't care to get there why are you doing it at all? Of course if you care at all about quality code review is one of the better bang for buck tools and so maybe you need to change your culture around peer correction so it can be used. The choice is your companies.

hinkley 6y ago

It also depends if everyone else pointed out 2 things and you pointed out 10. Letting other people go first means you only have to point out 5, which is still lopsided but not 'holy shit, man' lopsided.

nicoburns 6y ago

> In an environment that places stress on those who underperform, anything that calls attention to performance problems will be hated. Anyone that points out those problems will be disliked. Even the best people will fall to this stress. Seems to me that this might be the problem rather than the code review itself! > We could decide together if it was worth the effort to make those changes. Async communications like PRs and emails simply aren't fit for that kind of discussion. Indeed. I've definitely found myself falling into a pattern of failing the review for serious issues with comments on the PR, but just approving the review and slacking the comments for small issues.

Person5478 6y ago
This is probably my biggest beef with the "culture" of software development nowadays. Back in my day (hold on while I go grab my cane...) software developers would just flap their lips and sound would come out at each other. Nowadays there seems to be this underlying assumption that actually talking to each other is a waste of time, that it should all be documented with no curation, and should always be in PR's, et al. I'm all for documenting decisions, but I feel like it's not too much effort to swing by someone's office and have a discussion with them. At that point, maybe you don't even need to document if the updates are small issues. Is it really so all-encompassingly important? But maybe I'm just old. Most of the time I'd rather talk to a human when I call into tech support too (unless it's something obviously automated like making a payment).
- nicoburns 6y ago
  > I feel like it's not too much effort to swing by someone's office and have a discussion with them Well there is a modern trend that's supposed to help with this too: open plan offices. No need to swing by their office, they're already right there (this has indeed been my working environment for most of my career). It's all a bit different at the moment of course, but my team regularly video calls each other to discuss things that would take too long over text.

user5994461 6y ago

>>> In an environment that places stress on those who underperform, anything that calls attention to performance problems will be hated. This is so missing the point of development. What do developers do? They write code and they ship code. (we could say that they deliver features or business value rather than code but that's not the point). Code review is effectively preventing them to work. A bunch of comments on a PR, with no approval in sight, is very effectively blocking any progress on their work and making their project late. Of course they're going to hate that.

edudobay 6y ago
I can't tell if the previous comment was ironic, but it seems to me that developers seeing things that way is a sign of immaturity or unprofessionalism. Why must developers write and ship code? To deliver a certain goal / feature / business value. If all they're willing to do is writing and shipping code without considering how will that software work in the future, what problems it might have, how hard it will be to make changes to it, they're not being responsible enough about their work. Software in general (except for throwaway code) is not supposed to work only NOW — it is expected to work for a long time, with an acceptable degree of quality, and with changing requirements. If, to build a wall, it takes longer than just laying some bricks, it is because a solid wall serves many more purposes than some layers of bricks.
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  > I can't tell if the previous comment was ironic, but it seems to me that developers seeing things that way is a sign of immaturity or unprofessionalism. It's not ironic, it's the new snowflake culture. It's pervading HN too. I made a comment a couple months ago about respecting the result of an election, and one reply was, "Yeah but what if you lose and you don't accept the result?" It was bizarre.
- bluGill 6y ago
  What does the business really want? If it is more or less worming code, or perfect code? Or somewhere in the vast continum between? Code review is one tool in a large set to get closer to perfect. However if the business doesn't care to get there why are you doing it at all? Of course if you care at all about quality code review is one of the better bang for buck tools and so maybe you need to change your culture around peer correction so it can be used. The choice is your companies.