In many of today's project plans there are tasks for requirements, design, development, QA, and UAT. However, there is one glaring omission that if ignored, causes projects to go over budget and damages your customer's confidence with subpar production releases. Code reviews can help you avoid these project setbacks. We can provide considerable ROI by reducing QA time and costs, and improving the quality of production releases. By using proven code review processes combined with software-assisted review tools, we can offer you a complete peer code review solution. Let us be your offsite peer code review project resource that takes all the burden off your development staff. Don't take valuable time away from developer's project tasks by having them sit in numerous code review meetings, flipping through endless pages of code, only to fall behind on critical development deliverables.

See what we have to offer with our Lightweight code review process and feel free to contact us with any questions, or request a free consultation, at services@emence.com. Visit our forum for free advice.

LIGHTWEIGHT REVIEW
Our code review process uses a lightweight review process which utilizes the benefits of the three most commonly used code review processes discussed in the next section. The lightweight review process focuses on taking code modules and reviewing them in small, controlled sections. This allows for more concise inspection rates and better defect density analysis. Sectioning up the code modules also allows us to use software review tools to look for common issues such as null pointers, parsing errors, runaway loops, and server-crippling memory leaks or account compromising security holes. This also helps us turnaround our code reviews faster which keeps your project plan on track. With a combination of vast experience with corporate projects, along with proven code review processes and highly efficient software assistance, we are able to provide a service that will help make your project a success.

Why you will choose EMence for your Premier Code Review Service

• Review as much as you need, or just specific phases in the SDLC.
  • UI layout, navigation, and overall design review.
  • Middleware pattern review of key Web service and interface offerings.
  • Data Access layer review of DAO patterns to insure top DB access performance.
• We work directly with your project manager, development manager, or technical team lead to determine the right fit for integrating our service offering into your project plan.
• Minimize your project risks and ensure a smooth QA and Production release by limiting common defects due to a lack of quality peer code reviews.
• By offering a convenient offsite model for our peer code review process, you can rely on a non-intrusive premier service that delivers quality results.
• We include a full report that includes detailed recommendations for code optimization and potential performance improvements.
  • We follow a combination of proven best practices during our peer code review process.
  • Our process focuses on reviewing blocks of code instead of an ‘all at once’ approach, maximizing an effective inspection rate of code to determine defect density.
  • Initial review process isolates the code from the developer assuring code is reviewed from a third person perspective. This ensures defects or performance improvements are discovered without developer ‘project-only’ influence.
  • We deliver clear and complete code review results that developers can use as positive feedback to improve their code. This approach encourages developers, not penalize their hard work.
• Peer code review service is offered at either a fixed cost model or an hourly rate. All delivered on time, based on your project plan deliverables.

It's important to know how different code review processes work and why our process provides the best results. There are three popular code review formats, each with it's own pros and cons. Let's look at what each has to offer.

FORMAL REVIEW
Formal code review processes are the most thorough type of review processes because of it's documentation, convenient project plan tracking, and focused meeting structure. In addition, detailed metrics are collected during the review process which can be analyzed by management. This review process is a project team activity which can include 1-2 development managers, 6-8 developers, along with specific roles assigned by the review meeting's moderator. These roles include reviewers, observers, and readers. Each of these roles has a specific task in the review meeting that allows for detailed defect tracking and effective metric documentation. The strength of the Formal Code Review process is it's detailed documentation of the defects discovered and the vast metrics that can be analyzed for comparison purposes of defects found in QA and how effective the code review process was in the project.

Pros:

• Complete documentation of the results from the code review process.

• Focused meetings that ensure everyone is identifying defects and not doing other project tasks.

• Formal code review processes identify many defects.

Cons:

• Numerous meetings have to be scheduled taking time away from critical project resources.

• Developers need to be available during the entire code review process taking them away from development project tasks.

• Formal code review processes require proper training to be effective. This can prove costly to the project's budget.

OVER THE SHOULDER REVIEW
Over the shoulder code review processes provide good code coverage and a more hands-on approach. Normally this review process uses 2 individuals, the developer and a peer, with the developer guiding the peer reviewer looking over his shoulder at the developers PC. This allows for instant defect resolution and a quicker code review process. The strength of the Over the Shoulder code review process is it's low project resource usage and it's quick defect resolution process.

Pros:

• Minimal project resources needed for code review process.

• Focused code review and defect resolution.

• No training required to conduct this type of code review process.

Cons:

• No documentation or metrics.

• Developer drives the pace of the review which often results in the reviewer missing defects.

• Defects that are identified often don't get reviewed again to insure they were fixed.

E-MAIL PASS-AROUND REVIEW
E-Mail Pass-Around code review processes can be very efficient and effective when the development team is spread out across the country, or across the world. When the developer is ready to have their code reviewed, they can gather the code modules that need to be reviewed and pick specific peers to e-mail for the code review. The strength of the E-Mail Pass-Around code review process is that it allows for a focused peer review of the code instead of a large meeting of resources that can impact the project timeline.

Pros:

• Documentation created indirectly through the e-mail chain of communication of defects discovered.

• Reviewers can manage their own time to focus on reviews instead of being bound to a review meeting schedule.

• All the review materials are prepared and sent through e-mail which allows the reviewer to stay organized.

Cons:

• Difficult to track when code reviews will be completed due to the nature of e-mail and it's 'respond when I can' communication.

• Offshore development and e-mail can often lead to longer code reviews due to time zones and the uncertain timeliness of e-mail responses.

• Numerous e-mail chains of code review feedback can become confusing.