Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/

[Calvin Powers <powers AT attglobal.net>]

I've been a team lead on many programming projects over the past few years 
and I'm a big believer in the value of code reviews.

However, the main benefit of a code review comes from the fact that the 
programmers know _at_the_beginning_ of a project that their code is going 
to be reviewed by their peers. Makes them write neater code when they know 
it's going to be exposed to public scrutiny.

As for contract vs. hired programmers. I would not say that one group is 
better at programing than the other. But I would say that contract 
programmers often don't have the "big picture" as well in their heads and 
sometimes this affects the code they write.

The only other thing I would say is that I'd be against any of the "online" 
code review tools. I think it's better to print out all the code, geive 
everyone on the team copies, have them review it before hand, marking up 
their copies in read. Then have a meeting where everyone sits down at the 
same table and raises their concerns.

Doing it this way is a pain in the butt. It's slow and tedious. But it's 
well worth it in my opinion. Not only do you get better code, it's a great 
way to establish a set of coding standards for the team via mutual 
consensus without the programmerrs feeling like a coding style manual is 
being shoved down their throats. Also it's a good way to teach newbies 
about real world coding do's and dont's.

Also, I try to get the relevant manager to sit in on the code review. It's 
a great way for The Boss to get to see who the high performing vs low 
performing programmers are.

At 01:16 PM 12/29/2000 -0500, you wrote:
> Hey,
>
> I've been asked to supervise and code review a dozen

> Java programmers on a project that's already in the
> development cycle -- M3, I know. Idea is that my
> Java expertise can help us deliver on time.
>
> Any suggestions/experiences/obvious pitfalls?
>
> Any opinions on contract programmers vs. hiring?
>
> Thanks!
>
>
>
> ---
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Calvin Powers                                             current events
mailto:powers AT attglobal.net                           cultural phenomena
http://www.sff.net/people/powers                            true stories
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