Mastodawn

I've seen a lot of people talking about the practice of code review in a way that I consider unrealistic lately. So here are my thoughts on what code review is—and isn't—for: https://blog.glyph.im/2026/03/what-is-code-review-for.html

What Is Code Review For?

Code review is not for catching bugs.

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Wolf480pl Mar 4

@glyph
shit, I've been doing it wrong for the last 10 years...

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Wolf480pl

@glyph
but also, I think you're missing one or two more purposes of code review (or you've implicitly folded it into the other three):

1. Ensuring the code is readable.

Source code is a way to communicate with other humans. So it's important that people other than the author understand it. If the code is too complex, difficult to follow, or relies on assumptions that are not commonly known, code review will catch that.

2. Making others aware of the changes.