duck-review

Code Review

Code review is a great way for knowledge sharing between author and reviewer; it works both ways.

It is a dialog, author reveals his story first, then reviewer learns from it and could add his knowledge to it at the same time.

Knowledge

Reviewer could share his knowledge in a form of a short comments or small code gists. Sometimes it is enough, while in other cases, a longer story should be told and shared.

Long story short

Reviewer is on his schedule, so there is no time telling long stories every time. The story should be told once and then referenced when there is a need to repeat it once again.

Write your story once, and share it via duck-review story library.

Method

Rubber duck debugging is great, so is rubber duck code review.

The essence of rubber duck method is that you have to explain your story to someone in order to understand it better. That said, it does not matter who would listen, so rubber duck being a silent listener is indispensable.

Here is the rules:

explain your story to a rubber duck
write you story down as you explain it
don't offend people
streamline the narrative
iterate until rubber duck is happy

Benefits

Compared to interpersonal communication on code review, rubber duck code review allows you to focus on a story and arguments you use. Refined knowledge is always better than unsupported feelings and rants about the code.

You would become a better programmer as you explain, and given that you keep story written, you could reference to it later, so no need to repeat yourself.