Customer Reviews

Best Kept Secrets of Peer Code Review: Modern Approach. Practical Advice. (Modern Approach. Practical Advice.)

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First, let me say that I have decidedly mixed experience of code inspections. At their best, I've seen them bring many diverse skills to bear on subtle problems, creating a product better than any one of the very capable developers could have built on their own. At worst, inspections range downwards from useless, not just worthless in themselves but divisive and demoralizing to the development group. I want to believe the process can be used safely and effectively, but I have some hard-won doubts. The fact that the publisher sells a technical product for managing the review process added other doubts.

I'm happy to say that my doubts are addressed - not banished utterly, but faced head on. Despite a bit of jargoneering (is "trial" really a verb?), the authors present updated techniques that appear to reduce some of the problems working against effective inspections. And no, the techniques don't demand that you buy their product first. The techniques dovetail well with modern ideas, including the Law of Demeter (p.46, on module coupling), SEI's PSP, and the rich IDEs common on developers' desktops today. Finally, the last chapter - and only the last chapter - addresses the company's product.

Despite the book's commercial origin, it has lots of great information beyond the writers' product. In fact, it reminds me of "Planecraft," written over 70 years ago. That book was written as a sales tool for the greater corporate glory of a company selling woodworking planes, but has enough worthwhile technical content that it was reprinted a few years back. Maybe "Best Kept Secrets" won't last 70 years, but I was struck by the analogy.

The book's discussion discussion is wide-ranging, readable, and helpful. A few editing glitches put potholes in the reading path, but only a few. On the whole, I came away somewhat more willing to throw myself back into the fray of inspections, as long as they're run carefully, in accordance with many of the ideas shown here.

//wiredweird, reviewing a copy given out as conference swag

This is a book with an agenda: selling Smart Bear Software's multi-user peer code review application. So you have to keep in mind as you read: how much of what's written makes sense on its own, and how much is carefully worded to lead you to the desired conclusion--that Smart Bear are the experts and their product is the greatest thing since sliced bread? That said, the book, or rather, collection of essays, is a good discussion-starter about code review. The chapter on Five Types of Code Review is a bit too assertive for me. I thought the chapter on Personal Software Process and code review was excellent. And the selling point of the book is the data they've gathered. Everything they could find on the Internet about actual industrial code review data (not much) plus their own real-life study at one of their customers--CISCO. So if you're ready to do code review, then just do it, and then read this book to compare notes. If you're not ready yet, this book will certainly make you wonder why not.

For people who consider doing code review, this book provides some useful information. It brings up many issues involved with code review, technical and sociological. However, without doing your own research and experimentation, it is hard to say if some of authors' conclusions are valid.

Just finished reading "Best Kept Secrets of Peer Code Review" by Jason Cohen, loaned to me by a co-worker. With a title like that, I half expected it to be a somewhat dry and/or boring read, advocating heavyweight development process or somesuch.

Turns out I was wrong. Although the tone of the introduction had me worried, once the book started I found it quite interesting and informative. The book uses a number of studies to make a good case for why (lightweight) code review should be used as a development practice. The suggestions were backed by research data that they analyzed and discussed, and they did a good job of explaining their conclusions with the prose.

I would recommend the book to anyone who is interested in the software development process or who cares about delivering quality software.

Jason Cohen, The Best Kept Secrets of Peer Code Review (Smart Bear Software, 2006)

Despite having been in IT for some fifteen years now, I must admit I'd never heard of peer code review before Smart Bear Software's book landed on my doorstep. I have to say it's a pretty darned good idea, though, from what I've read of it here. I'm not entirely sold on the book itself, but I like the idea it's touting, which is basically this: two (or more) sets of eyes on a given piece of code are better than one.

As for the book, it's pretty obviously another marketing tool for Smart Bear's code review tool, which makes me like it less than I otherwise would, probably. However, if you're a complete novice who's just being introduced to the idea, there's a good bit of valuable information here; it's worth reading as an overview of peer code review. Obviously not a general-audience book, but if you're in IT, check it out. ***