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Absolutely. There is a place for "I would prefer that XYZ". It often means "you have a convention slightly different than mine, I'd rather you change your code
by mercurial 13y ago
Absolutely. There is a place for "I would prefer that XYZ". It often means "you have a convention slightly different than mine, I'd rather you change your code to fit my style but that's not a big issue". However, you can be very explicit by saying "It's a bad idea to do XYZ and here is why, this is what I suggest instead".
Bonus point if your code review system can flag a comment as "Defect" to make it more explicit. It does not need to involve four-letter words or cussing in Finnish.
- davidw 13y agoI can understand not always having time to explain why something is a bad idea when you're working on very high profile code. I think Rusty's right: you can be unequivocally harsh with the code, but not swear at or call people morons.
- mercurial 13y agoEven if you don't have time to explain, "This is a bad/dangerous idea" is enough to get the point across, without resorting to swear words (on the other hand "I would prefer that" is clearly not much of an incentive to change things) or being rude ("or go away" is definitely rude in my book).
- mercurial 13y agoActually, now that I think of it, every time code reviews have been the occasion of heated comments (often my own, I have to say), this has been resulted in pointless drama dragging over for some time, instead of reasonable agreeing there is a problem and either sorting out the best solution between themselves or resorting to a third party to make the choice. Angry words are a waste of time!