Code inspection is the peer review of code for the purpose of finding defects. In a small enterprise context, many developers avoid code inspection because the overhead involved in review meetings and defect tracking is simply beyond their reach. This is unfortunate because code inspection is a powerful technique for identifying code defects early in the development cycle when they are inexpensive to remove. The rapid code inspection method described in this research note provides the benefits of traditional code inspection at 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 is well suited for small enterprises and can be adapted by any team for a variety of development methods.