Code Review

In the last topic we’ve learned about Walkthrough. In this topic we will learn about elements of formal Code Review. What will we do? We will identify the problems. Like there is a missing item, there is some mistake. Then we will see the rules, is the code written as per the rules or not? How much code do I have to review? How much time will be spent to review the code? It will have some rules, we will follow those. Each participant will prepare his contribution for the review. At the end we will write the report. Whatever results we have got from the review, we will make a report of that and pass it on to the development team. Now we will see about Code Review. In this lecture we will learn what Code Review is , why is Code Review done and what is the goal of Code Review? The 1^st thing is what is Code Review? The source code is human readable. Right? Any website development happens in coding, any mobile application development also happens in coding. So, the code is human readable. It can be in any language, Java, php, python. It can be any language; it is readable by humans. In software many errors happen because of the coding issue. Right? If there is a mistake in the logic of the coding. So, there has to be a mistake in the output. Right? If there is a mistake in the calculation, in the logic of the calculation then whenever the product is going to come out, there will be a bug in it. Right? So, how does the Reviews help? How does Code Review help us? Because of the Review our money is saved. Right? Why the money will be saved because we will catch such bugs which we are missing somewhere in the testing. It happens sometimes that in the testing, some bugs are missed. Like we had learned in the principles part that exhaustive Testing is not possible. It is possible that some of the bugs get missed. So, we will pay attention at the time of Code Review. What will we test? We will test specific types of bugs, which will slip from us at the time of testing. In this all the reviewers that are there will make a documentation for the review meeting in which there will be all the findings for the code. We will see the example ahead with which the Code Review will be clear considerably. This is the example of Code Review. First of all you can see that description is written. Right? Why is this code written? Then there are written files affected. It means that if I do any changes in this file, so which are the other files in which the changes will happen. If I changed in the A file and if it’s method is getting called in some other place. So, even there the change will happen. So, one small change is giving changes in 4 files or in 40 files that also we will mention in this. Methods affected, which are the methods that will be affected by this? Somewhere names will be affected, some parameters will be affected, in which lines it is happening and what is it that we have changed, if we have changed something recently then it’s ID. We will add it in this with a comma. How does that benefit? Suppose there is Facebook, how much coding it will have. So, if some other person comes for the coding, how will he know that due to change in this file where all it is changing. Right? So, it is important to do Code Review. And we will get to know which all files are getting affected, so that we can do the testing in a better way. What is the importance of Code Review? Code Review is done by a trained moderator and not by the author. The Code Review process will happen before the check in and not after it. Now, what is check in? Every time a developer will do some or the other coding, it is a small issue. Bug or it is a big bug. Somewhere he will do some coding. And there will be a production environment, where he will upload it, it is called a production environment. This is called check in. The entire Code Review process should happen before the upload and not afterwards. It is easy to implement code review and we can involve other people also in this. If suppose any senior person is involved for a particular cycle of Code Review. So, we will get good knowledge and the code review process that we have will become very strong and effective for further coding. What we learned in this? We learned what Code Review is. We saw an example of Code Review. What will we learn next? We will learn about inspection.