Forem: Eric Meadows

Large gap between opening a PR and submitted reviews...

Eric Meadows — Wed, 03 May 2023 00:57:33 +0000

We've noticed interesting trends...Tuesdays have the most code reviews. Wednesdays have the most PRs created. If we are supposed to get code reviewed fast, why is there such a large gap? (Note that not everyone is opening PRs right when they start work on a new task)

What causes more back-and-forths in PRs?

Eric Meadows — Wed, 05 Apr 2023 22:25:30 +0000

Is it:
a) poor syntax/styling
b) too many bugs
c) something else
I'm curious what your views are.

LLMs are problematic for knowledge sharing

Eric Meadows — Thu, 30 Mar 2023 23:31:54 +0000

If LLMs are probabilistic - do you trust the code output to chance, thoroughly inspect it, or look at it as part of the story?

Most engineers will thoroughly inspect it due to its probabilistic nature.

But inspection doesn't yield good knowledge sharing...so now what?

Making PRs better - first public release!

Eric Meadows — Thu, 30 Mar 2023 00:25:12 +0000

Yesterday we released the first public version (v0.4.0) of our FREE Chrome Extension (see https://sourcefield.io or https://lnkd.in/gf-KesJu)! We've been testing it internally for a week & are excited!! We have v0.5.0 on-deck to improve code reviews even more! Check it out!

(We're still early, so there might be some minor bugs)

Here are the early “release notes”:
Product Features:

Auto-generated PR Summary: Quickly glean what packages were added/removed/up- and down-graded
Arcs: Ordered narratives, composed of PR comments, to guide reviewers through a PR
Video & Audio Comments: Whether you want to spice up your comments with audio or video, or add a video to show off your UI, we embed the video & show you a code-aware transcription. We will be adding automatic hyperlinking over the next few weeks, so when variables are mentioned, the context is already quickly built for the commenter.
Risk Score: Know when a code change is risky - and determine if you or other team members should spend more time reviewing the PR.

Browser Support:

Supported: Chrome, Edge, Brave, Vivaldi, Opera, and Epic (we have not tested SRWare Iron, Comodo Dragon, Torch)

Platform Support:

Supported: GitHub Cloud

What is the purpose of code review? Can LLMs help?

Eric Meadows — Tue, 28 Mar 2023 23:46:23 +0000

For years we've been told code reviews are the best place to prevent bugs. But code inspection doesn't scale. Given these conflicts - what is the purpose - reducing the bus factor, sharing knowledge, adopting standards, catching bugs, or ___?

If they're true...can LLMs help?

LGTM - why it's scary

Eric Meadows — Tue, 28 Mar 2023 01:17:51 +0000

Why is LGTM scary? We don't know if the reviewer reviewed it, spent time to understand the code change, know what the code is supposed to do, etc. As a senior eng, sometimes I wanted to steer the review to be thorough, but inspection doesn't scale...enter GPT.

LGTM = Scary

Eric Meadows — Thu, 23 Mar 2023 00:00:48 +0000

LGTM - the scariest words to see as a CTO. That means devs didn't spend enough time on a PR.

Stacked PRs are bad!

Eric Meadows — Wed, 22 Mar 2023 00:42:17 +0000

Stacked PRs - they look like fun, but they're terrible. They unblock the author but they make code reviews a nightmare. They're a code review villain in disguise!

Context in PRs is not being solved

Eric Meadows — Tue, 21 Mar 2023 01:39:10 +0000

Bottlenecks in PRs are everywhere - but the core issue is lacking context. Devs & managers don't know how close a PR is to shipping. Reviewers don't know if major changes are coming or how the author got to the final code. They also lack a product that shows them the key data to review w/o jumping around. No tools fix this, and the latest start-ups aren't working on the core problem.

Is AI bad for code reviews?

Eric Meadows — Sat, 18 Mar 2023 01:02:42 +0000

If a code review was done by AI, what would you lose out on? If an AI told you, before you request a review, that it's going to be rejected because of reasons XYZ, would that be better?

"How is the review coming along"...would this be useful?

Eric Meadows — Fri, 17 Mar 2023 00:30:56 +0000

As a dev, I write a bunch of code. I just want to get a PR merged. I am often frustrated to know if a dev is even looking at my PR, how close they are to wrapping it up, etc.

Would knowing this make you happier or more frustrated?
👍 = yes
👎 = no

React to get your voice heard!!

Quicker PRs means you can do _____

Eric Meadows — Wed, 15 Mar 2023 00:21:59 +0000

Code reviews take up 20% of a good dev's time.

If you could accomplish the same goals, while drastically reducing the time...what would you do?