My graduate supervisor has asked me to look into the following problem:
Code reviews. They can help make our software better. But how come I didn’t learn about them, or perform them in my undergrad courses? Why aren’t they taught as part of the software engineering lifecycle right from the get-go? I learn about version control, but why not peer code review? Has it been tried in the academic setting? If so, why hasn’t it succeeded and become part of the general CS curriculum? If it hasn’t been tried, why not? What’s the hold up? What’s the problem?
I’m to dive into academic papers regarding the above, and blog about what I find out.
Stay tuned.
I read Communications of the ACM on a regular basis, so I see the debates going back and forth about “what should be in the curriculum” for an undergraduate degree in Computer Science. It would be great if code review made the cut more often, but look at the bright side: all those years ago when I got a degree, version control was not even mentioned. So things are improving. 🙂
I don’t know of many professors who are really “into” code review. I’d point to Greg Wilson, but you already know him. There is also some interest in it at Carnegie Mellon University, for example check out this assignment from a course last fall: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~aldrich/courses/413/assignments/asst10.pdf .
@Gregg
Thanks for posting! Find my response here: http://mikeconley.ca/blog/2009/09/13/do-peer-code-reviews-seem-incompatible-with-the-traditional-classroom/
Cheers,
-Mike