Book Review: Looks Good to Me: Constructive Code Reviews by Adrienne Braganza

Teams need a healthy code review process to ensure readable, testable, operable, and maintainable code. It’s possible for the code review process to help the whole team build shared understanding of their codebase. Done well, they promote knowledge sharing. Every team member can add value. Code reviews can take the form of pull or merge requests,

And, too often, code reviews generate many pain points for many teams. They can become terrible bottlenecks in the workflow. Differences of opinion and insensitive feedback often create bad feelings. Even within my own teams, merge requests or pull requests requiring sign-off from a product owner or other team member have hindered our workflow. And some teams might not even have a code review process!

Help is here

Fortunately, Adrienne Braganza has come to the rescue with her terrific new book, Looks Good to Me: Constructive Code Reviews. (Note: That link will give you a 45% discount on all formats). Whether you’re new to code reviews, or you’re an experienced software practitioner wondering how to make code reviews work for your team, this book will guide you. Even if your team practices pair programming or ensemble (mob) programming aka software teaming, you’ll find nuggets in this book that will improve your process.

As the title may suggest to you, this book is a super fun read. And, it is practical step-by-step guide, whatever your current level of knowledge and experience, exploring all facets of code reviews. The real-life examples and stories from a wide range of practitioners make it so relatable. It’s full of illustrations that clarify the concepts. There are even templates for working agreements, emergency playbooks, and pull requests. As you follow along, you’ll learn tried-and-true practices to help your team build quality in using every aspect of code reviews.

The author explains where you should start in the book, given your experience level and your team’s needs. She points out that people aren’t really against code reviews, they just find everything about them annoying! She encourages us to have conversations about how we want to approach the process. What are our goals as a team? Creating a working agreement smooths the way. I especially like the book’s emphasis on having conversations and on adopting proper engineering discipline.

What if your organization isn’t even doing code reviews, and you can see the need? The author gives tips on overcoming resistance and building a pro-code review culture. Whatever your own role or specialty, you can influence your team to adopt good code review practices. As a DORA guide, I was tickled to see the book explains the key DORA metrics and how to use them to show the benefits of code reviews and continually improve.

A Whole Team Approach to build quality into your team’s code

Since my own mantra is “quality belongs to the whole team”, I’m happy that this book explains that code reviews are for the whole team. The author emphasizes kindness. Using her advice, your team can learn how to give useful feedback to improve code, and address pain points as they come up.

I’d like to emphasize that this book is for everyone on software delivery teams. I especially encourage my fellow testing specialists to get involved with code reviews, and this book will help you add lots of value. Most of my teams practiced pairing and ensembling, and we were diligent in reviewing our pull/merge requests too. Belt and braces, as the British say. I’m grateful to the product owner who helped me years ago to learn how I could benefit both our team and myself by participating.

Code reviews are a great opportunity to collaborate with your team members and learn more about your team’s code. If your team isn’t doing code reviews, or if you do code reviews and they’re a source of annoyance, this book will help you have good conversations about how to improve the process.

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