Code review¶

Code review (Wikipedia) is an essential tool when developing quality software. We welcome interested persons and provide some general information about it here.

How to start¶

The code is available at GitHub and you'll find links to demo versions and manual, used technologies and much more on the OpenAtlas website.
Information about development is available here, in our Redmine Wiki.
We recommend using your favorite editor to analyze the code and install OpenAtlas locally to e.g. run tests.

Etiquette¶

Giving and receiving critique can be difficult, we are humans after all, but there are some things to make it easier and friendlier for both parties involved:

• Be polite and respectful, e.g. thank for comments and suggestions. Even if you don't agree, someone made an effort to communicate something.
• Be factual instead of personal e.g. use "this function" or "that suggestion" is faulty instead of "you are"
• Try to make suggestions or give examples on how to improve something instead of just criticizing an existing solution
• Don't repeat yourself, e.g. if you find an unfortunate named variable, note it once and not everywhere it was used

A good read about working on code together is The Ten Commandments of Egoless Programming, as originally established in Jerry Weinberg's book.

What to look for¶

• Bugs
• Security issues
• Code readability
• Unhappy paths (Wikipedia)
• Architecture (e.g. use of frameworks or their lack of)
• Documentation (code comments, manual, installation notes, ...)
• Tests and coverage
• Performance

How to participate¶

When you find issues we like to hear about it and there are many ways to tell us:

• Giving feedback in a meeting with the developers
• Creating Redmine issues (registration required)
• Using Git, e.g. making pull requests. It's recommended to make at least one commit or pull request per issue.
• Write us an email to openatlas@oeaw.ac.at