Making the Time to Review Pull Requests

Code review is super important. At times I have worried that I've spent too long reviewing and not enough time working fast and breaking things. Today I was reminded that time spent on code review is worth its weight in gold.

• My Code Review Story
• Benefits of Code Review
• Summary

I was invited to a 1 on 1 meeting with a colleague who had offered to review my code in a pull request on GitHub. She wanted to discuss the three questions I'd left on my pull request.

Her review was so careful and thoughtful! During the call, she whipped open a Notion file that contained answers to the questions in my pull request. She also showed me a sheet she had created that contained various URLs for testing, along with information about each link.

I felt so good that she had put so much time and effort into her review! She had even had a chat with another engineer to find out how to answer my questions better.

We discussed possible improvements and solutions for about half an hour. After the call, I felt great. I felt more confident that my pull request could be improved and, once merged, really add value to the project I'm working on. Not only that — but the code will now be clearer and more future-proof.

Here are some benefits that code review offers:

• Adds to shared knowledge and increases the bus factor
• Improves the quality and future-proofness of code
• Decreases the chance of bugs in code by picking up on things others miss
• Improves the end-user experience
• Reviews are a form of documentation
• Lots of emojis are allowed

There are so many reasons to review code. I urge you to set aside abundant time for code review! It isn't a waste of time. Anyone who thinks so is a bit silly. Good luck :)