What my grandmother taughtme about code review

My grandmother never saw a line of code. She did, however, review a lot of my homework, with a red pen and a cup of tea.

She always started with something she liked. Then one thing to fix, never five. Then she asked me to explain my answer, and usually I found the mistake myself.

The same rules still work

Start kind. Pick the one comment that matters most. Ask questions instead of giving orders.

I think about her red pen every time I open a pull request. It makes me a slower reviewer, and a much better one.