I Found 6 Errors on Your 30-line PR. Here’s Why I’m Not Reviewing More

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The Secret Developer is a good software developer. They like to get those Pull Requests in and move those tickets to the right.

“I guess I’m like many software developers in that I like getting stuff done. Now I’ve previously written about some toxic software development practices and those that you should avoid.
This particular article is about a situation I’m currently in. The penny has finally dropped. There’s a reason people don’t usually behave the way that people do in this company.
Let me explain to you.”

The Rubbish PR

Unusually the awful PR in question is not the work of The Secret Developer but instead penned by one of their colleagues. Here’s what’s wrong.

“Imagine you need to rename 12 classes. You use the refactoring engine on the IDE and change the filenames && the class names. 

You forgot to change a bunch of properties and test at the same time. No big deal but as you’re working with The Secret Developer you should know by now I’m going to be able to scan down the list of changes and find inconsistencies. 

It’s no hanging offense to have a rather incomplete PR. I’ve done it plenty of times so it wouldn’t be fair to complain too much about that. Sure, it’s a rubbish PR but that happens to all of us sometimes. 

Instead, I’ve got a problem with what happened next.”

What happened next

“Here is the situation. They ignored me. 

For each comment, they wrote ‘next PR’.

They took my ‘approved with suggestions` and merged their changes. Pretty soon they raised another PR with those changes embedded in a set of other changes. 

Slack pinged. ‘PR ready for review’.”

The consequence

“I feel that my work is not of value. Nobody listens to me. 

At some point that is fine, you don’t respect me so I won’t respect you either. 

However in this case I feel that people use my review to improve their work without any appreciation. 

That’s one thing but to then expect me to look through another PR is a horrible thing to do. 

You know what I’m going to do. I’m not going to review your PRs. Then I’m going to look for another job. 

Thanks, bye”

What should developers do in this situation?

If you’re not quite as grumpy as The Secret Developer you probably wish to tackle this situation head on. 

Here is some sensible advice on how to tackle this problem.

Communicate clearly

Ensure clear communication about issues found in PRs. Avoid passive-aggressive comments; be direct and constructive.

Confirm boundaries

Ask what the boundaries are for PR practices in your organization. If you can initiate conversations about how suggestions can be implemented in your code.

Establish boundaries for what is acceptable in PR practices. If necessary, refuse to review PRs that consistently ignore your suggestions.

Ultimately

It’s important to be treated with respect. If you aren’t perhaps you should think of your future and whether you are in the right place to achieve what you would like to.

Conclusion

This article has covered The Secret Developer acting as an entitled software developer (nothing new there) while also advising as to what software developers who find themselves in this situation should do.

“I‘m sure most people will look at the ’advice’ from this article but miss the real point.

If you’re not happy somewhere and feel that you are not appreciated you should leave.

The real result of this interaction (and other similar ones) is that I’m actively looking for a new job.“