Always looking for ways to improve the quality of our code, one thing I can recommend is the introduction of ‘buddy reviews’. You probably know the normal code review where maybe once a month, a technical lead or architect has a look at your code. Of course you have already moved on to another part of the code, so it’s way too late to fix all the detected issues (with an increasing technical debt as a consequence).
So let’s introduce the buddy review. It consists of meeting up with another team member informally (ideally before you check-in your code) and having a quick glance (5 - 10 mins) at each other's code at your desk or their's. This approach has the following benefits above the ‘formal’ code reviews:
- Problems are caught very early.
- You are always up to speed as to what is going on.
- Reviews are always very short because you are only looking at new code since the last catch up .
- Because the setting is informal - there is no nervous tension.
- They're fun! You can exchange ideas - regularly.
Go and try this with your team! You’ll not regret it.