Code inspection is the peer review of proposed code for the purpose of identifying defects. Although this review can identify defects early in the development cycle when they are inexpensive to remove, many development teams do not practice it because of the time consuming nature of traditional code inspection. The rapid code inspection method described in this research note provides the benefits of traditional code inspection with a substantially lower time investment.
This note covers the following topics:
- Cultivating a code-review culture.
- Using a style guide.
- Developing inspector and author checklists.
- Preparing for inspection with bench checks and annotations.
- Submitting the optimal amount of code and reviewing for the optimal time period.
- Using a central repository to track defects.
- Holding reply meetings.
- Verifying that defects are fixed.
Learn a rapid code inspection method that can be adapted by any team for a variety of development methods.