Alternatives to Code Review Feedback

Code review comments have their place, but there are alternatives. Here is a short collection of things you could do, instead of writing a comment on a pull request.

Some code review comments could be:

  • A discussion with the broader team about what software architecture to aim for
  • A training session or conversation to help a developer learn something
  • Running a coding standards fixer, or introducing it to the build process
  • A commit fixing the spelling
  • Private constructive feedback to a subordinate
  • A ticket to make a separate change in a different pull request

These are just some of the alternative ways of communicating. Sometimes a code review comment is ideal, but on other occasions an alternative approach might be more suitable.