If I’m doing the review, I try to find at least one or two items to call out as great ideas/moves. Even if it’s as simple as refactoring a minor pain point.
If I’m being reviewed I always make sure to thank/compliment comments that either suggest something I genuinely didn’t consider or catch a dumb move that isn’t wrong but would be a minor pain point in the future.
As you note, code reviews can be largely “negative feedback” systems, and I find encouraging even a small amount of positivity in the process keeps it from becoming soul sucking
The more I learn about how the bigger companies do business, the happier I am my dreams of working for them never materialized. I encounter enough stupid things caused by businesses trying to measure difficult things. I would hate to work in a place where the proper mode of conduct – praise in public, criticize in private – is flipped on its head for the purposes of someone's spreadsheet.
It was definitely a bad system that leads to wrong incentives.
Due to this, a lot of the time, leaving a comment would lead to friction with the owner of the CR, thus disincentivizing leaving comments, which leads to worse code being merged.
If I’m doing the review, I try to find at least one or two items to call out as great ideas/moves. Even if it’s as simple as refactoring a minor pain point.
If I’m being reviewed I always make sure to thank/compliment comments that either suggest something I genuinely didn’t consider or catch a dumb move that isn’t wrong but would be a minor pain point in the future.
As you note, code reviews can be largely “negative feedback” systems, and I find encouraging even a small amount of positivity in the process keeps it from becoming soul sucking