Lightweight Peer Code Review

Peer code reviews can be one of the most effective ways to find bugs. However, developers will not accept a heavy process, and it's easy to waste time using poor methods. Jason Cohen describes how lightweight code review practices can succeed where more cumbersome, formal inspections fail. He shares the results from the largest case study of peer reviews ever conducted. You will gain new insights on how much time to spend in review, how much to code review in one session, and how author preparation practices can increase the efficiency of a review. Jason offers tips on the mechanics of lightweight code reviews and compares five common styles of review. He provides advice on how to build checklists and describes what metrics can actually tell us. Learn how to conduct practical, time-efficient code reviews while avoiding the most common mistakes.

• Why lightweight reviews work where formal inspections fail
• The social issues of reviews and how to overcome them
• What code review metrics mean and what they do not mean