Peer Review for prop hardaware/software?
prof_braino
Posts: 4,313
Does anyone use Peer Review for prop hardware/software?
I'm trying to set up code review for my prop project software. Has anybody already tried/done this?
I've seen several threads about Open Source Licenses. There are tons of objects in the OBEX and snippets posted in threads. Authors post code, and folks possible make comments or changes, but these tend to be scattered in individual threads, or possibly in comments in the code, or possibly through private email of other communication; or otherwise get lost between the first version and the current version.
But there does not seem to be an organized method for authors to post code, and get responses, and keep these in an organized system. It seems to me that is one person has a question, others would have the same question. If the question is anything more than trivial, there are like way possible ways to proceed, and users would be interested in the discussion and basis for decisions made. This is particularly relevant when a new user comes on board and asks a question that was previously covered by "old timers" the previous year. I always cringe when I read a response like "read the other thread before you post" (not so much here, but often in other forums), especially when there is "no thread" to be found.
It seems to me that it might be useful to have an option to have a code review for a given piece of code. This way, all the questions raised about the code could be recorded, with the subsequent changes, so that the "final" code has a compete history of what went into it and tells the story of how it reach the current point. This can be handy when the code is revisited for new hardware, feature updates, new projects etc.
I'm trying to set up SVN on Google Code for the purpose of running reviews and tracking changes, but I'm having way too much trouble. Has anybody else tried this already? Is there an easier way? Is it overkill on a hobbyist project? Is it even worth the bother?
I'm trying to set up code review for my prop project software. Has anybody already tried/done this?
I've seen several threads about Open Source Licenses. There are tons of objects in the OBEX and snippets posted in threads. Authors post code, and folks possible make comments or changes, but these tend to be scattered in individual threads, or possibly in comments in the code, or possibly through private email of other communication; or otherwise get lost between the first version and the current version.
But there does not seem to be an organized method for authors to post code, and get responses, and keep these in an organized system. It seems to me that is one person has a question, others would have the same question. If the question is anything more than trivial, there are like way possible ways to proceed, and users would be interested in the discussion and basis for decisions made. This is particularly relevant when a new user comes on board and asks a question that was previously covered by "old timers" the previous year. I always cringe when I read a response like "read the other thread before you post" (not so much here, but often in other forums), especially when there is "no thread" to be found.
It seems to me that it might be useful to have an option to have a code review for a given piece of code. This way, all the questions raised about the code could be recorded, with the subsequent changes, so that the "final" code has a compete history of what went into it and tells the story of how it reach the current point. This can be handy when the code is revisited for new hardware, feature updates, new projects etc.
I'm trying to set up SVN on Google Code for the purpose of running reviews and tracking changes, but I'm having way too much trouble. Has anybody else tried this already? Is there an easier way? Is it overkill on a hobbyist project? Is it even worth the bother?
Comments
I've worked in peer review situations in corporate engineering, and I found useful feedback most of the time or no feedback at all. Unless you have active team members who understand the quality standard you want to achieve, it's probably a waste of time.
I would expect useful and reasonable feedback from a small percentage of forum participants. There would however be some educational/entertainment value in seeing the review process unfold.
You are asking may things there:
Yes, works very well. Pretty much everything I have ever written for the Prop has been posted here. Seems it always gets looked over by one or more people. Sometimes they show the error of my ways, sometimes the idea is scrapped, sometimes the thing grows into a project which takes on a life of it's own and grows into a long and winding thread with many contributors. Often people make excellent suggestions for optimizing code for speed or space or they present code for new and interesting features or different hardware support.
As such I would say that my code has often been subject to more thorough, stricter and beneficial code reviews here on this forum that was the case when working professionally in the aerospace or government security fields:)
As for the rest of your post I don't see a solution. There is an ocean of interesting questions and useful answers/suggestions in this forum. It is hard to find what you want at any moment. As long as people come along with meaningless titles for their thread's like "Newbie having Prop Problem" and then proceed to ask a question that turns out to be nothing to do with their actual problem (Happens every day) then I don't see anything helping.
Unless a piece of code is actually part of a project that is maintained well, with a version control system possibly, I don't see the point of keeping lots of snippets and change histories around. It just becomes another ocean you can't find anything in:)
Version control, SVN or CVS or GIT or whatever is an excellent idea, even for hobby projects and even if you are the only contributor. So many times I have been relived to find that I can back out of a load of useless code I was experimenting with. Or take a diff between a working old version and a non-working new version to see what I might have broken:) Having that change history log can be a great reminder of what you were up to after you have taken a break for a while and forgotten. At least you have a backup and don't get bogged down in hundreds of file/directories with all kind of wierd version tags on them as I have seen many times.