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Code Review as a Service

pullrequest.com

21–30 of 238 posts

Re: Code Review as a Service

#21

Having on-demand engineers look at code, without broader context on the project it is in my view the same as something that can be automated either or both via static analysis and custom ci/cd workflow checks. This can probably makes sense on a project with more junior engineers where many basic improvements can be supposedly suggested without needing broader context? I would be keen on hearing the use case

A lot of people use ESLint and Prettier. If you look at the roadmap/issues for those products you'll see that some feature requests cannot be programed, but can be understood without knowing the full context of the business and codebase.

At the same time, if you are fixing a critical bug and you use enum instead of boolean, who cares, just push the fix, but it doesn't hurt to have a gentle reminder show up in your github PR that it is an option to use boolean instead.

Re: Code Review as a Service

#22

I'm imagining that to make such service profitable, offering something like $699 per developer per month, you are not hiring reviewers from USA, right?

From the FAQ:

> Reviewers earn anywhere between $50 and over $3,000/week. Earnings are based largely on the amount of time spent reviewing on the platform and the type of code being reviewed. PullRequest’s payment rates are comparable to those of a senior-level engineer based in the US.

> PullRequest issues weekly payments based on review activity during the preceding week. The time that you spend reviewing is tracked through our platform; reviewers are not required to log hours or invoice.

Re: Code Review as a Service

#23

I'm imagining that to make such service profitable, offering something like $699 per developer per month, you are not hiring reviewers from USA, right?

When I saw the 200/hour pricing I thought "that actually sounds reasonable", but how is 699/month for unlimited review going to work out?

Re: Code Review as a Service

#24

Saw this link here in the past. Didn’t pickup. The reason why I don’t like it is that random people, regardless their expertise, cannot just review PRs and understand the impact of the change on the system without being deeply involved in the product.

I'm a little more positive about this. A careful code reviewer might be able to spot generic security or even logic flaws in code, such as inappropriate use of strcpy in a C program or code which is unreachable in a way that cannot be detected by the compiler. Also there's a lot of scope for automation, such as running Coverity or other free and commercial linters/checkers, although also a danger of overwhelming the results with false positives and junk.

Re: Code Review as a Service

#25

I'm imagining that to make such service profitable, offering something like $699 per developer per month, you are not hiring reviewers from USA, right?

Well, something has to give. Perhaps the devs work 4h/mo, so it is just a slight discount compared to the hourly rate.

Re: Code Review as a Service

#26

Having on-demand engineers look at code, without broader context on the project it is in my view the same as something that can be automated either or both via static analysis and custom ci/cd workflow checks. This can probably makes sense on a project with more junior engineers where many basic improvements can be supposedly suggested without needing broader context? I would be keen on hearing the use case

A lot of people use ESLint and Prettier. If you look at the roadmap/issues for those products you'll see that some feature requests cannot be programed, but can be understood without knowing the full context of the business and codebase. At the same time, if you are fixing a critical bug and you use enum instead of boolean, who cares, just push the fix, but it doesn't hurt to have a gentle reminder show up in your gi…

Vitamin, not painkiller. Just keep that in mind

Re: Code Review as a Service

#27
This entirely misses the point of code review.

Say it with me: Code review is a knowledge transfer exercise.

Finding bugs, security vulnerabilities, and keeping the code maintainable are merely side effects that we appreciate along the way.

The primary purpose of code review is increasing the bus factor of the given piece of code and facilitating organic knowledge transfer. That's it.

Re: Code Review as a Service

#28
On the one hand, lacking broader context might make this service seem silly.

However I think it can help bust groupthink

It’s still valuable to get more general feedback and ideas explicitly without context to challenge our attachment to current practices in existing codebase schools.

It’s nice to get a pair of eyes with a completely different background give feedback. With context we may have blinders on. A fresh perspective might uncover things we haven’t thought of and bust groupthink

Even though I’ve been coding in Python for years, I still might not have awareness of the best most effective way to do something in general. Imagine all the projects started in the last few years from people learning Rust for the first time?

It may not make sense for the largest, most complex code bases, but I can see it valuable for medium to small projects to get outside perspective.

Re: Code Review as a Service

#29

Having on-demand engineers look at code, without broader context on the project it is in my view the same as something that can be automated either or both via static analysis and custom ci/cd workflow checks. This can probably makes sense on a project with more junior engineers where many basic improvements can be supposedly suggested without needing broader context? I would be keen on hearing the use case

> via static analysis and custom ci/cd workflow checks

Perhaps that is what this service is trying to create behind the scenes: building datasets for a high-signal-to-noise-ratio automated reviewer.

Re: Code Review as a Service

#30

I'm imagining that to make such service profitable, offering something like $699 per developer per month, you are not hiring reviewers from USA, right?

From the FAQ: > Reviewers earn anywhere between $50 and over $3,000/week. Earnings are based largely on the amount of time spent reviewing on the platform and the type of code being reviewed. PullRequest’s payment rates are comparable to those of a senior-level engineer based in the US. > PullRequest issues weekly payments based on review activity during the preceding week. The time that you spend reviewing is tracke…

> Reviewers earn anywhere between $50 and over $3,000/week.

They are operating just like a freelancing platform, right? How many hours is a "week" for them? 40 hours?

> PullRequest’s payment rates are comparable to those of a senior-level engineer based in the US.

Like include life and health insurance, paid vacation, profit-sharing, a generous signing bonus, and more?

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