6 code review principles that improve code and relationships
↳ Recognise effort before giving feedback
↳ Ask questions instead of giving commands
↳ Use “we” instead of “you” to signal teamwork and not criticism
↳ Focus on architecture and code quality, not nitpicky details
↳ Be specific with examples and reasoning
↳ Review your comments before sending. Would you want to receive them?
Here are some examples:
“This is messy” → “Could we break this into smaller functions?”
“You forgot to handle edge cases” → “Nice work! Should we also handle null or empty values?”
“This doesn’t follow standards” → “To maintain consistency, we could follow the naming convention from the API module. Here is the link to the docs”
The goal isn’t perfect code. It’s better code and better relationships through effective communication.