I've always found it hard to do something like a structural discussion without having written some code first. At Google I found that I could request an informal code review in email rather than using the formal request mechanism ("g4 mail"). I could even provide a changelist number so the reviewer could look at it in Mondrian. But by having used email I could frame things so the reviewer would look at the high-level picture. That usually seemed to work.
Mondrian's integrated with e-mail, so I don't really see what the problem is. Oftentimes I'll start a discussion by mailing off a code review with some sketches of how I'll attack the problem, and then the resulting design discussion occurs in an e-mail thread, which is all recorded on the Mondrian code review if I decide to submit the CL.
Another nice feature of that is that if parts of the design discussion pertain to particular features in the code, you can attach them as such, so that the code is automatically quoted in the e-mail thread.
Mondrian's integrated with e-mail, so I don't really see what the problem is.
All I'm saying is that it seemed to make a difference how I initiated things.
Another nice feature of that is that if parts of the design discussion pertain to particular features in the code, you can attach them as such, so that the code is automatically quoted in the e-mail thread.
That sounds like either a new feature of Mondrian (it's been 2 years since I was at Google) or one that I simply hadn't discovered (I never completely mastered Mondrian or the code review process when I was there.)
Anyway, my larger point is that at Google there seemed to be a tendency to always default into a low-level line-by-line code review unless I took explicit steps to point the code review into a different direction. I saw a similar tendency at Mozilla. YMMV, of course.
