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Engineering Craft

Reviews, refactoring, testing, estimates, and the parts of the job that are not really about code.

Fifteen years in, the things that separate a good team from a struggling one are almost never technical. These are the opinions I have arrived at, including the ones I am least sure about.

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Code Review Is About the Team, Not the Code

Reviews are for sharing what you know, not for scoring points on style.

Everything on this topic

  1. Comments Should Explain Why, Not What Nobody has ever needed a comment narrating the line directly underneath it.
  2. Code Review Is About the Team, Not the Code Reviews are for sharing what you know, not for scoring points on style.
  3. Code Ownership Is an Anti-Pattern Why 'my code' is a phrase that should worry you and everyone around you.
  4. Channel Your Drama Into Entertainment Drama belongs on a stage, deliberately, and not in the middle of your day.
  5. Burnout Is Not a Badge of Honour Working yourself into the ground is not dedication, it is bad planning.
  6. Always Be Refactoring Why the big rewrite never actually happens, and what to do instead.
  7. Stone Soup Programming Put a rock in some water and ask if anyone fancies adding a carrot.

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