Code Seeker - Tool for Peer Code Review

Code Seeker is a tool for peer code review, with this tool teams can enhance their development by working sharing their knowledge (techniques, know-how, standards, etc).
This good practice creates more integrated and confident teams.

This is a summary of how Code Seeker works

1. Login View

2. To use Code Seeker, every member needs to create a user, click "Sign Up" button

3. As you create a new account, your review list is empty

4. You can always look your code work (changes) on your local computer, Code Seeker allows you to share it with your team before you commit it

5. To publish your code work on Code Seeker you need to create a patch, most IDE's give you that functionality

6. The patch is a copy-view that you save on clipboard

7. Now go to Code Seeker and "Create a Review"

8. Set a title and a description for your code worked and paste the patch saved (Ctrl + V) on your clipboard. Remember that you shouldn't modify the patch content

9. After you complete filling in the blanks, press "Process Review"

10. Now this is your code worked view, and this can be shared with your team before you commit it

11.Green lines are piece of code you have added, and the red ones are pieces of code you have deleted. The skipping label is to avoid printing hundreds of code lines that hasn't changed.

12. By sharing the generated link (URL) of your code worked view with your team, they will be able to look at your code worked and leave comments to point out some important topics, before you commit

13. You can leave a comment on your teammate code worked just by clicking the line code where you want to leave a comment

14. Comments will be persistant and every member of the team will be able to see it, it also stores the date and the name of the person who made the comment

15. After you created a Review, when you log in again or go to your welcome page, all your reviews will be saved and listed

Code Seeker - A Cool Peer Code Review Tool

start_CodeSeeker() {
We have finally finished out project CodeSeeker.

This project's aim is to help developers to share their knowledge.
This is a tool in which a developer can see their changes with repository in a very cool user interface (not the simple eclipse subversion) and can allow others to see the same changes, and even comment their changes to make it a better work before it gets committed or pushed to repository!!!.

Known facilities for Team Code Review:

* If you are a developer:
   - You can improve your habilities by being reviewed by your team mates and learn new things.
   - You can learn business rules by reviewing your team mates work.
   - You can be reviewed by your team mates and avoid making critical mistakes to the current project.

* If you are a team leader:
   - You can verify if your team are developing software under the standards required by the project.
   - You can comment on the work your team have done to encourage them or tell them about any mistake.
   - You can be well-known about what code is going to be comitted before it gets to main repository.

Download here the CodeSeeker project


1. Download Code Seeker Software

2. Unzip and you will find the following files:

     a.       CodeSeeker (Web Application Resource [WAR] file)

    b.   CodeSeekerSQL (Scripts for database)

3. Execute the file "codeSeekerSQL" (default: MySQL database)

4. Database should look like this:

5. Operan the CodeSeeker.war file with "Win RAR" and edit the file "codeSeeker.properties" and save changes.

    a. Variable "pp": It is the path of your physical disk where all your peer code reviews will be save, you should set here a folder with all permissions on your hard disk, and should not edit any of the files that will be created there.

    b. Variable "databasePassword": It is the password for your database conecction.

    c. Variable "databaseUserName": It is the user name for your database conecction.

    d. Variable "databaseURL": It is the source of your database, in this case you should keep the reserved word "review"

Remember to save changes after editting.

6. Now deploy the codeSeeker.war file (This has been testad with tomcat 7) and link url:
   "http://localhost:8080/CodeSeeker/" and should look like this.

To learn how to use Code Seeker please link the next post.

That's all, remember that when you get expert at something, the best way to keep being the best is teaching others what you know.

};

Have you ever shared your knowledge?

have_you_ever_shared_your_knowledge () {
There are many ways to share knowledge we acquire, however most common way when we share our knowledge is when we are asked about something some else doesn't know.

In my short experience as a software engineer I have enjoyed two special ways to learn and code, the first one is pair programming and the second and favourite is team code review.

Most of you should have heard and applied pair programming, it means a development method when two developers work together in the same computer and at the same time, giving each other the ideas each one has to get a solution that both agree.

On the other hand team code review is a practice that i have experienced only once. Team Code Review consists in shared your knowledge by showing your work experienced applied.
As the name says "Team" this is worked in team, when a member of a developer team has developed any functionality, this work should be shared with the rest of the team so that some of them can learn some skills they did not know or some of them can help the member who did the work to improve any part of their work.
This way of working is very used by strong and reliable developer teams who acquire knowledge from all their team partners and all of them can be supervised by the leader (or member in charge of the team), using this good development practice developers can improve their skills faster and easier.

Some Software Applictions that can be helpful are:
 - Crucible (from Atlassian)
 - Gerrit (from Google)
 - Review Board.
And coming soon we will be sharing and application to practice this development method.
};

whats_app(?)

whats_app(?) {
Today I set up a good goal, "shared knowledge"

I will use this space or blog to share as much as I can about software development, I have made many mistakes and learnt things for each one of them, this has given me a big know-how and I will share it with you so you avoid making the same mistakes.

Moreover, I will talk constantly about a good practice called "peer review" or as I call it "team code review", this is the most innovative practica I have seen in my experience as a Software Developer.

Thanks for your time.
};