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Code Reviews 101

Wed, 02 May 2012 16:04:33 -0400

Code reviews are a great way to improve code quality and increase the maintainability of a code base. By increasing the general code quality of a project through code reviews you will decrease the number of bugs that are visible to the customer as well as decrease amount of time spent later debugging and fixing code (it has been noted that effective code reviews can remove over 80% of all defects before testing even begins).

A review can find many faults during coding.
Early detection of errors can improve productivity.
A review helps members of the team learn about other parts of a system, and can increase their overall programming skill.

The code review process consists of three main activities a personal review, peer review and rework.

Personal review

Personal code reviews involve the developer inspecting their own code before it is released for further inspection by a peer. There are several tools available to aid a developer in this personal review process, Checkstyle and PMD are great tools that help cover basic code quality issues.

PMD is a Java source code analyser. PMD is used to identify common bad coding practices like, unused variables, empty catch blocks, unnecessary object creation etc.

http://pmd.sourceforge.net/

Checkstyle is a development tool to help programmers write Java code that adheres to a coding standard. These coding standards help enforce a standardised approach to the way the syntax of your code is laid out. Checkstyle is highly configurable and the rules it governs can be changed from project to project.

http://checkstyle.sourceforge.net/

If the above tools are in place a developer should write code that is of quite good quality by default, however before any code is released for further scrutiny the following check list should be completed by the author of a unit of code.

Personal review check-list

Code compiles correctly.
All checkstyle and PMD errors and warnings are addressed (or suppressed if not applicable).
Code delivers the desired functionality (satisfies the requirement).
Adequate tests have been written (preferably using a test driven development technique) that meets or exceeds the projects target test coverage metric (usually over 80%).
All source code and dependences are committed for this unit of work.

Peer review

A designated reviewer examines the code on their own, at their own pace, and at their own convenience but before the code to be reviewed is delivered within a release to the customer. The goal of the peer review is to have a fellow developer confirm that a unit of code conforms to the customers requirement, software architecture and has been written to the acceptable coding standards that are laid out for the project.

Peer review check-list

Requirements review

Do you understand the requirement or defect that this unit of code aims to satisfy (read the requirement or defect description)?
Do all changes implement the required feature, or fix a defect?

Design review

Do you understand the design?
Does the implementation match the design (does the implementation follow any required design patterns)?

Coding standards review

Do you understand the code?
Does the code adhere to the coding standards (no Checkstyle or PMD errors or warnings etc)?

Test review

Are there test cases for this unit of code?
Are the test cases adequate to satisfy the code coverage requirements of the project?
Are the tests affective (boundary conditions tested etc)?

Maintainability

Are all code comments necessary?
Are all code comments accurate?
Does the implementation match the documentation?

Rework

After a peer review has taken place any issues that have been found are raised to the author of the reviewed unit of code. It is then the authors responsibility to address the raised issues and once completed repeat the personal and peer review processes. If no issues where found the code is ready to be included in the next release.

Jupiter, a code review aid
Jupiter is the team collaboration review tool to help aid the code review process. This tool helps aid the code review process by introducing a “Review” prospective to the eclipse IDE. From this prospective developers can create and manage individual code reviews in a collaborative team focused way.

The Jupiter user guide is available at http://csdl.ics.hawaii.edu/Tools/Jupiter/Core/doc/UsersGuide.html.

Also the DevX site has a good practical walk through of using the Jupiter plug-in in a code review process http://www.devx.com/enterprise/Article/31658.

"Are you leaving behind an easily found trail of accomplishment? Few people are interested in your..."

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 15:47:09 -0500

“Are you leaving behind an easily found trail of accomplishment? Few people are interested in your resume any more. Plenty are interested in what you’ve done.”

- Seth Godin

5 actions to diversify your professional development and be a rock star in your field.

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 13:55:54 -0500

5 actions to diversify your professional development and be a rock star in your field.

"Keep presentations simple, it should make sense to a five year old, without treating your audience..."

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 10:40:04 -0500

“Keep presentations simple, it should make sense to a five year old, without treating your audience like a five year old.”

56 Leader Skills - Be An Extraordinary Leader

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 10:35:17 -0500

56 Leader Skills - Be An Extraordinary Leader

9 Signs of a Losing Organization

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 12:43:37 -0500

Fuzzy Vision: corporate vision and mission don’t inspire people; lack of strategic alignment ; people don’t know where the organization is going and what it is trying to achieve in the future.
Lack of Leadership Skills: fear of change; leaders lack entrepreneurial spirit; leadership style on the part of management is either too directive or too hands-off; managers do not lead, they just administrate and micromanage; weak leadership development program.
Discouraging Culture: no shared values; lack of trust ; blame culture; focus on problems, not opportunities; people don’t have fun at work; diversity is not celebrated; failures are not tolerated; people lose confidence in their leaders and systems.
High Bureaucracy: bureaucratic organizational structures with too many layers; high boundaries between management layers; slow decision making; too close monitoring of things and subordinates; too many tools and documents discouraging creative thinking; bureaucracy is tolerated.
Lack of Initiative: poor motivation and encouragement; people do not feel their contributions make a difference; management fails to engage the organization effectively; people work defensively and not creatively, they do their job, and nothing more.
Poor Vertical Communication: people have no clue of the big picture and do not feel that their contributions are important; too much uncertainty; people don’t know what top-managers are thinking and planning.
Poor Cross-functional Collaboration: functional mindset; lack of cross-functional goals and cross-functional collaboration spirit; functional, no enterprise-wide business process management; no cross-functional management committees; lack of or powerless cross-functional teams.
Poor Teamwork: no organizational commitment to team culture; lack of shared and worthwhile goals; weak team leaders; team members who don’t want to play as part of a team are tolerated; teams are too large; lack of shared rewards.
Poor Idea and Knowledge Management: cross-pollination of ideas is not facilitated; no idea management and knowledge management strategies and systems; “know-it-all” attitude; “not invented here” syndrome.

From Indonesia’s Professionals and Entrepreneur’s Club.

Forbes: How To Be More Interesting (In 10 Simple Steps)

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 17:14:00 -0500

Forbes: How To Be More Interesting (In 10 Simple Steps)

"Progress + momentum = confidence. The moment you see yourself tackle the smallest part of the..."

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 14:17:56 -0500

“Progress + momentum = confidence. The moment you see yourself tackle the smallest part of the impossible task, the quieter the Critic (your internal voice) becomes because you’re slowly proving him wrong.”

- Managing Humans

Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action. Similar to Jim...

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 13:40:00 -0500

Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action. Similar to Jim Collins’s Hedgehog Concept.

Hedgehog Concept By Jim Collins. Hedgehog concept is finding the...

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 13:33:04 -0500

Hedgehog Concept By Jim Collins. Hedgehog concept is finding the intersection of the following circles:

Understanding what you are deeply passionate about?
Understanding what you can be best in world at and equally understanding what you cannot be best in the world at?
Understanding what drives your economic engine? Understanding one ratio above all other ratios … profit per X … understanding what X can give you highest ROI?

"Please stop waiting for a map. We reward those who draw maps, not those who follow them."

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 10:50:30 -0500

“Please stop waiting for a map. We reward those who draw maps, not those who follow them.”

- Seth Godin (via wellsaidblog)

How to Think Creatively

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 08:06:00 -0500

How to Think Creatively:

Not a recipe but rather tips on using the right brain.

"A manager’s job is to take what skills they have, the ones that got them promoted, and figure..."

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 07:47:58 -0500

“A manager’s job is to take what skills they have, the ones that got them promoted, and figure out how to make them scale. They do this by building a team that accentuates their strengths and, more importantly, reinforces where they are weak.”

- Managing Humans

Seth Godin: write something down everyday.

Sat, 19 Nov 2011 08:51:32 -0500

Seth Godin: write something down everyday.

"Good management is the art of making problems so interesting and their solutions so constructive..."

Sat, 19 Nov 2011 08:51:08 -0500

“Good management is the art of making problems so interesting and their solutions so constructive that everyone wants to get to work and deal with them.”

- Paul Hawken, Natural Capitalism

This lively RSAnimate, adapted from Dan Pink’s talk at the...

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 11:32:45 -0500

This lively RSAnimate, adapted from Dan Pink’s talk at the RSA, illustrates the hidden truths behind what really motivates us at home and in the workplace.

Why People Micromanage

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 12:48:27 -0500

Why People Micromanage

"One of your many jobs as manager is information conduit, and the rules are deceptively simple: for..."

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 08:51:29 -0500

“One of your many jobs as manager is information conduit, and the rules are deceptively simple: for each piece of information you see, you must correctly determine who on your team needs that piece of information to do their job.”

- Managing Humans

Email template for respectfully declining unsolicited requests to meet from vendors

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 08:50:24 -0500

In my career I have came across two types of vendors. Type A: Vendors who were recommendations from friends, family, co-workers and executives or they obtained your contacts from conference meet ups or well established public companies looking to add your company to their partner list. Type B: everyone else.

Its usually best just to ignore type B, as majority of these emails are from bulk account and your response is no different then responding to spam. For type A however, its best to respond politely, as you may run into them in future. Below is the email template taken from Rajiv Pant.

<unsolicited-vendor-reply-template>

Dear Vendor Name ,

Thank you for your interest in doing business with us.

At present we are satisfied with the solutions, products and/or vendors we already have in place in the areas relating to your potential services and products.

Meeting or discussing further at this time would not be of beneficial to either party since we are not looking to purchase products or services that you offer in the near future.

We respectfully suggest that if you continue to be interested in our business, you feel welcome to check back with us after six months .

If anything changes on our end in the meantime, please be assured that we have your information and we will reach out to you. Also, if I find that there are other parts of our organization that may have interest in your products or services, I will share your information with them.

We appreciate your reaching out to us and we wish you the best.

Sincerely,
Name, Title & Company

</unsolicited-vendor-reply-template>

Using this template to reply instead of simply ignoring the vendor’s email or worse, meeting with them because of not being able to say no has the following benefits:

It is polite yet firm… better to treat others respectfully and not set false hope and expectations.
It gives the vendor a next step and timeframe to contact you again in case you do have a need for their services then.
Six months is a good default, since it gives you an opportunity to reevaluate after six months. However, for certain long-term type contracts, you could use longer periods.
If you are convinced you will never need this vendors’ services, politely tell them that instead of giving a time frame.
It is likely to discourage the vendor from persisting in trying to meet with you or others in your organization.
Sending this one email may save you from getting repeated emails and phone calls from the vendor.
It keeps the door open for you to reach out to the vendor if your organization’s needs change.

The Top Ten Lies Leaders Believe

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 16:23:57 -0500

The Top Ten Lies Leaders Believe