SOFTWARE TESTERS ROLE IN CODE REVIEW

fromdev.com

I like how wiki explains that Code review (sometimes referred to as peer review) is a software quality assurance activity in which one or several humans check a program mainly by viewing and reading parts of its source code, and they do so after implementation or as an interruption of implementation. At least one of the humans must not be the code’s author. The humans performing the checking, excluding the author, are called “reviewers”.

WHY DO CODE REVIEW?

Code review is an exercise where devs investigate their own code. By investigate I mean, devs understand the code base and newly added lines of code, check that it meets existing guidelines, checks for logical errors, checks for code readability, performance and suggests improvement where applicable.

During code review, the coder explains to the team (usually developers and tester) what the unit of code is expected to do according to requirements.

One major thing attending code review taught me was knowing the syntax of the code as each developer explains what a unit of code or an addition to a set of code should do, why it was added and what should be expected. This I must say increased my vibe to learn to code more.

As testers, it is important to always start by understanding what you don’t know.

SO WHAT DO TESTERS ACTUALLY DO DURING THIS REVIEW?

If you are not familiar with coding (which you don’t have to be) code review sessions might appear gibberish and difficult to understand and that's why it is important for the tester to

PAY ATTENTION AND ASK QUESTIONS

More of what you need as a tester during code review is observational skills.

So pay attention to how the logic is coded,

Listen to the devs explanation of every unit of the code according to requirements

Check for spelling mistakes and suggest more user-friendly response messages

Ask what the snippet of code is expected to do.

Every other person except you sees the logic from the developers’ angle. You should see it from your test cases (users) angle.

ENSURE CODE LOGIC IS ACCORDING TO REQUIREMENT AND CATCH BUGS

As a tester who knows what the requirement entails you will be acting as a guide to ensure that the code logic will function as expected. Express yourself, take notes and let the team know your findings.

Yes, you can catch bugs earlier in development by contributing to code reviews. Any deviation from requirement is a bug. You do not have to wait till code is merged to production, which would rather turn out to be more expensive and time-consuming before you raise prospective bugs.

WHAT CODE REVIEW DOES TO THE TEAM

Code review makes the team more agile in process adherence

Code review encourages knowledge sharing

Code review encourages clean, clear, reusable code

Personally, code review encouraged interest to code

Code review encourages communication among team members

And to you Tester, code review isn’t always as boring as you think.

start ensuring quality as soon as participating in code reviewing