I know that as a software engineer, you understand the importance of code reviews.
But, have you ever noticed that when you ask an engineer to review a small amount of code, they’ll find many issues, and when you ask them to review a large amount of code, they’ll simply say it looks good?
Unfortunately, this phenomenon is not uncommon in the industry, but small changes do matter.
Let me tell you a story, as a front-end engineer, I once worked on a project with a senior engineer. The senior engineer submitted a giant diff that did way too much. It was overwhelming for me and my teammates to review it, and as a result we missed some critical issues 🐞.
If only we had given feedback to break up the change and resubmit it, we could have avoided those issues. This experience really inspired me to write this article and share the true importance and impact of code reviews with others.
Small changes might not seem that important to you, but they can affect your code in significant ways. By reviewing small changes, you can pick up on issues before they become bigger problems. A small change in function can trigger a huge snowball of other aspects in the codebase that no one was ever expecting.
Code reviews according to me are simply a way to have another engineer’s eyes through your code to make sure it aligns with the set of standards and best practices which you follow within your organisation. Since you will not be able to see everything you do wrong in your code, you can expect that the reviewer will be able to spot things you missed.
It is almost always a good idea to break down code review into small pieces to ensure no mistakes are made and catching any issues early on. There are plenty of reasons to proceed with code reviews.
1️⃣ The first one is that it will help you save time and resources with catching mistakes quickly.
2️⃣ The second main advantage is to increase code quality and ensure it is up to snuff in the industry.
Implementing code reviews might be a difficult process at first, especially when complex application has been built. The key here is providing the feedback and dividing changes into smaller chunks to prevent any errors that might turn out complicated in the end. Furthermore, effective communication within the team is a very important thing.
In conclusion, i’d say small changes can lead to a successful code review process. Dividing the code into smaller parts allows other engineers catching more errors which you may have missed and preventing them from occurring later. In conjunction, effective communication with team members is mandatory and dividing changes is also important.
Please comment below if you have any questions or let me know what problems you have faced during code review.
