Ask HN: I'm tired of intense code review cycles • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: I'm tired of intense code review cycles

#51

Post by pg_1234 » Sat, Dec 18, 2021, 6:09 PM UTC

lpapez wrote: post #37

I work in such an environment. My advice is to: 1. push for tooling such as linters, formatters, static analysis etc. which reduces ambiguity and discussion based on personal preferences. These tools also help prevent any nitpicking comments. 2. write code to the best of your abilities without thinking about reviews and ask for review early. I find that most people have a strong need to say something on reviews, even…

You missed the key comment "the learning curve is flattening" in tech this means it is time to move on. There is no point trying to redeem a system you have outgrown, unless that is your official responsibility.

Re: Ask HN: I'm tired of intense code review cycles

#52

Post by solididiot » Sat, Dec 18, 2021, 8:31 PM UTC

siquick wrote: post #10

I had a Lead like this. It go to the point where I would spend a significant portion of my working time in existential dread about submitting a PR because I knew they would just rip it to pieces. The worst part was small styling issues that would have been picked up by any linter - but the lead refused any requests for the team to use linting because “we have never used it and everything works fine” I lasted 4 months…

Your lead was an immature ars$ who saw the PR review as a way to exercise power. I'm quite sure that there was very little actual value in his pedantic bs but probably he sold that to his manager as "QA gatekeeping" or something equally well sounded. In reality all he's doing is slowing everything down, wrecking morale and piss around to mark his territory like a primate. It also speaks volumes about the company - not a place I'd like to be and probably not a place producing too much value.

Re: Ask HN: I'm tired of intense code review cycles

#53

Post by Aqueous » Sat, Dec 18, 2021, 10:50 PM UTC

nucleogenesis wrote: post #48

peakaboo wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to disagree with the view that not using black means the lead is not senior. Being senior means you understand the tradeoffs and you make your own decision. If you ask a senior why he choose not to use kubernetes, you will get a bunch of real reasons. If you ask a junior the same, he won't have a good answer because he lacks experience with the pros and cons.

Right and “we don’t need to use black because we haven’t yet and things work fine” is a bad response that dismisses the real needs and concerns of others on the team when they’re saying “things aren’t fine we want computers to handle the nitpicks from here”. I wouldn’t say it indicates junior tech skills but it’s a sign of junior management skills.

I would say it indicates junior tech skills as well. If the value of the linter isn’t self evident to him he is a junior.

Re: Ask HN: I'm tired of intense code review cycles

#54

Post by redsh » Sun, Dec 19, 2021, 10:54 AM UTC

The only positive thing I see about them is that it forces people to read code and get some understanding of the project they’re working on. But in general, we should rebel against code reviews - they are one of the things that make programming a corporate chore and not something fun. 99% of the time is spent on useless nitpicks and the rest of the 1% can be done with more testing or design sessions.

Re: Ask HN: I'm tired of intense code review cycles

#55

Post by Hasnep » Sun, Dec 19, 2021, 12:01 PM UTC

tossaway9000 wrote: post #49

siquick wrote: post #10

I had a Lead like this. It go to the point where I would spend a significant portion of my working time in existential dread about submitting a PR because I knew they would just rip it to pieces. The worst part was small styling issues that would have been picked up by any linter - but the lead refused any requests for the team to use linting because “we have never used it and everything works fine” I lasted 4 months…

I don't know why someone would want to waste time arguing about code style. Standardizing on things like `cargo fmt`, `go fmt`, and `terraform fmt` remove a ton of nitpicking out the gate. The javascript world can't seem to make up their mind though (jslint is rarely used these days, jshint died, I think eslint is the thing now?)

Eslint is a linter, the most common formatter for JS that I've seen is Prettier.