Name: What The Optimal Discussion On Code Review Looks Like
Uploaded: 2022-04-05T01:51:49+00:00
Duration: 2 min 56 s
Description: In this video, we explore the spectrum of code review discussions, highlighting what kinds of conversations are appropri

What The Optimal Discussion On Code Review Looks Like

In this video, we explore the **spectrum of code review discussions**, highlighting what kinds of conversations are appropriate—and which are not—for an effective and healthy code review process. We emphasize that great code reviews live in the middle: technical, constructive, and context-rich.

### Key Takeaways:

- **We avoid extremes on the code review spectrum**: Debates about architecture or product behavior should happen *before* the code is written. On the other end, trivial nitpicks like formatting should be automated with linters—not left to human reviewers.
- **We aim for meaningful middle-ground discussions**: The best code reviews focus on topics like naming clarity, input assumptions, and logic validation—things that improve understanding and code quality without being overly granular.
- **We talk about testing and future-proofing**: We use code review to validate testing strategies and anticipate how upcoming features or changes might interact with the current code—enabling forward-thinking design.
- **We reduce unnecessary friction with agreed standards**: By aligning on style conventions and automating formatting checks, we free up our code reviews to focus on higher-order thinking and shared learning.
- **We use code review to transfer experience and context**: A reviewer’s knowledge of future plans or broader system behavior adds lasting value. These discussions aren’t just about code—they’re how we build team wisdom.

In this video, we explore the spectrum of code review discussions, highlighting what kinds of conversations are appropri

[Masterclass] How To Do Amazing Code Review

Code review is one of the most effective ways to learn as a software engineer, especially for those earlier-in-career. Unfortunately, way too many engineering teams get it wrong with slow review speed and low quality comments.

There is a mountain of information in this presentation, so here's our 5 favorite points (in no particular order):
- **Code review is NOT for catching bugs** - Of course, if you find a bug in a PR (pull request), you should call it out, but that's not the primary purpose of code review. The core benefit of code review is to build up engineering culture, propagating best practices amongst the team and growing newer and more junior engineers.
- **Add deep context to your PRs** - Explain what your pull request does and the reasoning behind your approach. Also, *include a test plan.* A test plan is a demo showcasing what your code changes do; try to make it a video/gif, which is especially powerful if you work on front-end (Android/iOS/web). If you can't do a video, try attaching a screenshot or a set of commands to run tests.
- **One diff, one thesis** - Every PR should be focused and atomic: Don't jam the entire new feature you just coded up in a single 1,000+ line PR. Huge commits are hard to review, and your teammates will hate you for it. For the vast majority of cases, you can break down your PRs to 25-250 lines of code.
- **Read others' code reviews** - Similar to so many other things in tech, stand on the shoulders of giants where you can. With code review, this means looking at how senior+ engineers on your team comment on reviews. Try to find patterns in the issues they're finding and incorporate it into how you review code. Revisions that have been rejected with changes requested are a gold mine for this learning.
- **Code review MUST be fast** - When we say fast, we mean that feedback should arrive in <24 hours. What a lot of engineers don't realize is that code review delay is multiplicative: Sometimes commit will need 3-5 revisions before they're able to be merged. If turnaround is 2+ days, this can easily lead to commits taking weeks to land, which is far too slow.

A lot of the terminology in this video is Meta specific. If you're more used to GitHub:
- Diff review = Pull request
- Diff = Commit

Related resources:
- ["How to give better code reviews without full business context?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/vio35mw1SYWM8AYojB2w/how-to-give-better-code-reviews-without-full-business-context/)
- ["How to review code in another language/ from another team?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/B79W3aWc8xMB8cCULFdJ/how-to-review-code-in-another-language-from-another-team/)
- [Presentation Slides](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1koyIR9K_CtESD7Vnh3GQOE-svFW-ngrQeEAduSAoH0w/edit)