Open debate: leave code review to automated tools

I sometimes hear that having developers or architects review code is standard practice. Personally, I think that view is somewhat outdated. During development, I see more value in giving that job to tools such as PMD or Checkstyle that automate it. Their time is cheap and they scale quite well, which you cannot say of developers.

Of course, code review covers a range of work. Some errors can be found with those tools. Other mistakes or poor implementation choices call for a degree of intelligence. Examples include inconsistent exception handling, missing transactions and other such nasties.

Tools such as PMD flag most of the errors a manual review would find just as well. I expect the familiar 80/20 rule applies. I think developers can spend the time they save on something more worthwhile, such as teaching themselves new things, which they may well enjoy a lot more. I see code review as a punitive instrument and lean toward prevention. Perhaps my view is too radical and you'll convince me in the comments that I am thoroughly mistaken.

Responses

• jirablog Code review is certainly useful