On 08/30/2012 10:59 AM, Chris McMahon wrote:
This crossed my desk this morning, it is a long and
detailed (and honest!)
account by an insider of Google's efforts to increase code quality and
product quality. I think it's relevant to what we're doing at WMF, and
what we might do in the future.
http://mike-bland.com/2012/07/10/test-mercenaries.html
Thanks for the link, Chris. I read the piece, and a few insights seem
especially applicable to us:
* participating in code review, even as a peripheral commenter rather
than a key reviewer, gives a participant much greater understanding (and
a better reputation)
* sustained cultural & process changes come from a combination of
automated tools, informal influence, training, propaganda :-), ambient
information, clear expectations, and maybe orders from management ...
and sometimes it takes a really long time
* badges and levels and labels matter, and we should be careful about
how we design and deploy them (related:
https://blog.mozilla.org/nfroyd/2012/08/22/humane-practices-for-review-requ…
)
--
Sumana Harihareswara
Engineering Community Manager
Wikimedia Foundation