Reviewing code is a skill
17 points by typesanitizer
17 points by typesanitizer
I was wondering about footnote 10, quoted in context here:
In the meeting, the senior person, instead of pointing out things which don’t quite make sense, or could be done differently, instead first asks the junior person for their perspective on why they did things a certain way, or what assumptions they were making.[10]
[10]: It’s key to avoid counterfactual questions for why something was not done a certain way, or why the person did not think of something. This might sound easy, but if you actually try this, you’ll notice it’s quite hard to stick to this!
I can imagine it's hard to stick to this. Why would I? I think if I had a good reason to stick to this, it would be much easier, because there's intrinsic motivation to do it. I didn't find any such reason in the post, but maybe I didn't read carefully enough.
I am supposing that it is because you do not want to ask leading questions or bias the junior person's answer in some way.
And probably also to avoid unintentionally adding blame. "Why didn't you do it like this?" can sometimes feel like an accusation, depending on the tone and team dynamic.