Truncated Domes, Code Reviews and Things that slow us down

Truncated Domes, Code Reviews and Things that Slow Us Down

I was recently at Target buying bedding for my family of 10 kids. Imagine a cart overflowing with pillows, blankets, sheets. The balancing act that it took me to put this all in the cart and get through check-out. As I come out of the store I can see my car three rows over and 5 cars down. I know I can do this. I just have to be careful and go slow and everything will make it in the cart to the car. Just for a second I take my eye off the sidewalk infront of me and boom! I hit those crazy yellow things in the sidewalk. You know what I am talking about the yellow bumps that are there to shake all of the stuff out of your cart. It is like someone does not want people to over stuff their carts. The bumps are there to shake everything loose out. Needless to say I spent the next 10 car.

Being an engineer of course I had to find out why in the world we have “Truncated Domes” in the front of stores at work, etc.. My first thought was someone slipped and fell. Then got a lawyer and sued everyone. Then companies afraid of being sued for millions put in the “Truncated Domes” so other people would not slip. Then I started getting mad at all of those lawyers that have caused my stuff to fall out of my cart. I had to look into this more.

Additional research found that truncated domes are a type of detectable warning areas as described in the Americans with Disabilities Act Accessibility Guidelines. Basically these yellow bumps help blind people know where the sidewalk ends and the street or parking lot begins. Many different types of detectable warning area techniques have been tried but the truncated domes have been found the most effective and the only type approved by the ADAAG. So I cannot get mad anymore. It helps blind people not walk into the street or busy parking lot. If I get mad at that then I would be unreasonable and very politically incorrect.

So what does that have to do with Software or Firmware engineering? I guess not much on the surface, but I did gain an appreciation for not taking things as they appear. Over the years I have found that some that one of the BKMs (Best Known Methods) to increase quality in software development is Code Reviews. One of the first reactions when Code Reviews are introduced to team is similar to my reaction to “Truncated Domes”. I hated them. Didn’t understand why they were there and knew they slowed me down. So to help people understand some of the benefits I have searched and compiled a quick list of benefits.

1. Sharing Experience and Knowledge - People come up to speed on new code faster when reviewing code of others. Teams talk about the code and tribal knowledge is built up.
2. Improved Code Quality - As people learn from each other they improve their own code. They want to make sure their code is higher quality when showing it to their peers.
3. Finding Bugs - As code reviews start at first bugs are found easier than after code review have been going on for a while. But it is much cheaper to find the bugs in code review than in validation or worse in the field.
4. Decrease Trucking Factor - As more people know and understand the code the team decreases the risk of losing domain knowledge due to illness, team moves, resignations or trucks hitting someone crossing the road.
5. Coding Standards - Coding standards are typically written down and new people spend hours reading documents that are difficult to understand. Code Reviews can bring people up to speed faster than sitting and reading coding standards.
6. Increased collaboration - Sometimes engineers need to be forced to be social and talk to each other. Code Reviews get engineers to talk with each other and share information.

Next time you are being feed a new process or tool you should ask yourself why was the tool chosen, what is the purpose behind it, and sometimes just trusting in the people making the decision. Next time I will talk about some of the tools that help in code reviews.

Helpful Links

1. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/37241/ - Benefits of Code Review
2. http://productdevelop.blogspot.com/2007/10/benefits-of-code-review.html - Benefits of a Code Review
3. http://www.zdnetasia.com/behold-the-benefits-of-code-reviewing-39172660.htm - Behold the benefits of code reviewing
4. http://ostatic.com/blog/open-source-code-review-tools - Open Source Code Review Tools

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