Code reviews—more important today than ever. And there’s a simple reason for that.
I’m currently working on a code review. Well, strictly speaking, I’m actually working on this post right now, but before that I was deep into a code review, which then led me to this post. And by now you know that I always have to “get this off my chest.” So I’m taking a quick break to write….
Today’s source code is shaped by people, decades of experience, legacy systems, and a wide variety of trends—some of which were once “hip” and others “crap.” All of that is embedded in our software—whether we like it or not. It’s in the architecture, in individual lines of code, in the libraries we use, in comments, and in the documentation.
And all of this plays a role in code reviews. “It works, doesn’t it?” isn’t enough, and there’s rarely such a thing as “good” or “bad.” Software is always subject to certain constraints (economic, technical, financial, social, etc.) that are directly or indirectly reflected in the source code.
Code reviews are therefore not just done to find typos using the dual-review process. During the process, you review (and discuss) whether the chosen solution is a good one given all the constraints. And this involves far more than just a static code analysis that, for example, calculates the ratio of comments to code (which has always been bullshit).
Of course, you can also use AI to do reviews like that. AI generates code; AI checks code. But no one can really claim to have “experience” with it yet, because the technology is far too new. And just because you’ve done a few projects with AI and a few prompts worked well doesn’t mean you can call that “experience.”
Unfortunately, I’ve seen an unbelievable amount of really bad AI code in code reviews because the prompts used were just really bad. And because the creators themselves are still operating in a trial-and-error mode. Nobody even notices. It looks great at first glance and “seems to work.” The only question is, for how long…
That’s why code reviews are more important than ever right now.
After all, the software we’re developing today has to last at least another 5–10 years until AI takes over completely. And in the areas where AI is already involved, things can work out perfectly—but they can also go terribly wrong.
Fortunately, we still have people who can thoroughly review software—people who can delve so deeply into a code review that, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter whether AI had a hand in it or not. And that’s exactly the kind of expertise we’ll need over the next (few?) years—until everything is programmed solely by AI.
So, make sure to give code reviews even more attention and priority right now!
P.S.: I’m going to get back to work now. And yes, I know it’s Saturday—but that’s when I have the space to dive into your CR without distractions—unless LinkedIn gets in the way.