Refocusing The Code Review

Automated pipelines with static analysis and automated testing are a form of code review.

Having automated code review through static analysis tools does not mean that manual code review is no longer necessary. Manual code review is still important, but perhaps it can shift its focus.

🤖 Automation to Review for Correctness and Consistency

• Formatting, common mistakes, generic standards
  • “Align the indentation” -> clang-format
  • “Includes aren’t sorted” -> clang-format
  • “Unused variable” -> Compiler rules: -Wunused-variable -Werror
  • “Naming convention” -> clang-tidy: readability-identifier-naming
  • “Wrong behavior” -> Automated tests

🫵 Manual Review to Review for the Human Experience

• Intent, Clarity, Design and Architecture
  • Is the code clear, easy to understand?
  • Is it maintainable, extensible?
  • Easy to use?
  • Is it error-prone?
  • Aligned with system goals?