When Code Reviews LGTM

this might be one of my more controversial software opinions

my bar for a code review is “do I understand approximately what this code is doing and how”, and that’s often enough to find one or two quibbles (‘hey this could have been named better" or “are you sure this part does what you think it does?”) but often it leads to the ol’ rubber stamp of justice

honestly I think that senior devs who can’t let a single PR go by without at least one nitpick because otherwise they feel like they haven’t done their duty aren’t accomplishing as much as they think

sometimes I would not do things the same way that that other person did

and then I just chalk that up to “hey, everybody’s mind works a different way” and go about my day

like, this is not to say I won’t intervene if something truly dangerous or ill-advised is happening, but, like, once a project has been chugging along for a little while with the same people, usually it gets increasingly clear when that is the case

sometimes a PR comes in with “I’m pretty sure that this won’t break prod” and that one maybe deserves a little more of the fine-toothed comb

note: if you’re working on avionics, medical software, people’s bank accounts, or are a nuclear engineer, definitely ignore me