When you start researching the code review process, you run across a lot of interesting blog postings, from the process perspective to the emotional aspects. I found this one, Working with your angry coder, and thought it was worth sharing. I stole the picture from his site too; both the kids and I thought it was funny!
Over that last year, I have definitely tried to be more aware of the comments I make. However, I do remember saying this phrase numerous times in the past “Whoever wrote this code should be shot!”. I too apologize for to all of the people I’m made cry over the years! I believe that most of these comments were directed at the code and never the original author; I don’t think I am that angry! I do have a passion and strive for perfection (at least the best job that I can do, given the scenario), which makes it very easy for me to be perceived as an angry coder. I used to think that I was the only one who cared about developing software quality. Someone told me that most developers are generally passionate about something in the process, usually just not from the same perceptive as me. So in reality, everyone is trying to do the best they can, we are all just coming at it from different directions. We just have to find a way to work more smoothly as a team. As one of the comments said, it is all about understanding each other. To bring this back to the code review process, I think it is all about finding bugs and learning from each other. If we truly practiced collective code ownership, maybe none of us would take the comments so personally and we would have less anger!
