Live data from Hacker News

I ruin developers’ lives with my code reviews and I'm sorry

habr.com

11–20 of 199 posts

Re: I ruin developers’ lives with my code reviews and I'm sorry

#11
post #4

> And if you tell me that you haven’t had this feeling ever, then you’re lying. Tell me about higher goals, training rookies and all that — I know you’re simply too full of themselves. And if you try to tell me that you learned to defeat that feeling (however it manifests in you), then I must be a pink unicorn. I think that this is called projection.

That line also annoyed me. I think this person has a lot more self reflection to do about their insecurities. I am glad he has begun to recognize there are some issues and I hope he is able to continue to improve himself.

Re: I ruin developers’ lives with my code reviews and I'm sorry

#12
i have been on an ever onward journey to try to find the balance:

- is a developer making the same set of mistakes? send them information on a better strategy to try overall

- how bad is this mistake? Is it just something that I know how to do better, or legitimately a broken way of thinking?

- what is worse, a slightly inefficient or unpretty algorithm, OR someone researching the problem / solution

Point is, 90% of my comments were meaningless. I really comment when things look wrong -- Did they misunderstand the intent of the ticket, did they verify everything with product because this looks weird, did they check the edge cases, did they forget about this other behavior, etc. All that I just mentioned is the real meat-and-potatoes. Code-fu is important, but less important than the other stuff. And if you are a calm, trusted, and mentoring team member, those same people will come to you to up their code-fu voluntarily.

Re: I ruin developers’ lives with my code reviews and I'm sorry

#13
post #8

I have been on several teams that found the following article "Unlearning toxic behaviours in a code review culture" very helpful: https://medium.com/@sandya.sankarram/unlearning-toxic-behavi...

This should be basic training anywhere people learn how to code.

Re: I ruin developers’ lives with my code reviews and I'm sorry

#15
post #2

Congrats to the author for realizing that confidence doesn't equate skill. This isn't being a pink unicorn, it's simply humility. The real danger of confusing the two is that real skill dulls if you let overconfidence take over, since the very thought of being "better than others" prevents you from accepting that maybe there are things that you don't know or haven't considered. For example, is "destroying" a coworker…

If you have to "destroy" every PR from a developer, you're wasting more time (money) than it would take to replace them. Why should be bad PRs ever be allowed for any reason?

Of course there are thresholds for competency. But if you find yourself having to destroy every PR from a developer you're probably toxic & insufferable.

Re: I ruin developers’ lives with my code reviews and I'm sorry

#16

Nothing makes working at a place more unbearable than having to deal with someone that gives an excessive amount of criticism on working code, at least that's how I feel. I've been in that situation before and it made me never want to submit pull requests. It made me even madder when other developers, whose code was no better than mine but had been at the company longer, received basically no critiques. Some might sa…

Strange, I’m on a team rn with people who just approve everything.

I’m craving some constructive feedback.

Re: I ruin developers’ lives with my code reviews and I'm sorry

#19

Nothing makes working at a place more unbearable than having to deal with someone that gives an excessive amount of criticism on working code, at least that's how I feel. I've been in that situation before and it made me never want to submit pull requests. It made me even madder when other developers, whose code was no better than mine but had been at the company longer, received basically no critiques. Some might sa…

Strange, I’m on a team rn with people who just approve everything. I’m craving some constructive feedback.

It's much easier to ask someone to be critical than it is to ask someone to go easy on you.

Re: I ruin developers’ lives with my code reviews and I'm sorry

#20

Nothing makes working at a place more unbearable than having to deal with someone that gives an excessive amount of criticism on working code, at least that's how I feel. I've been in that situation before and it made me never want to submit pull requests. It made me even madder when other developers, whose code was no better than mine but had been at the company longer, received basically no critiques. Some might sa…

Strange, I’m on a team rn with people who just approve everything. I’m craving some constructive feedback.

Not to be rude - but... have you asked for it?
Post reply on HN