Peer Review at Home
The benefits of peer review are well known, and this has led me into a difficult situation. As an employee for a large organization, doing peer reviews is a normal part of the job, and it is fairly easy to locate a willing coworker to do a peer review. Process exists for this, documentation is standardized, and the benefits are reaped.
Working at home, however, presents some problems. For one, finding someone to execute a peer review is difficult, since there is no one else around who understands the concepts to be reviewed. Additionally, without creating an organizational structure to the contracts accepted, it is easy to fall into the trap of bypassing the process when inconvenient. The benefits, too, are more difficult to realize, since there is only one level of testing before the program reaches the client. While this means the benefits are greater (the peer review will reduce the number of bugs to reach the client), since the person performing the review is unfamiliar with the work, they are unlikely to detect as many potential bugs as someone who is familiar with the code.
I would be interested to know if anyone has found a good solution to this. How do you find someone to do a code review on custom code you wrote on your own? How do you ensure that you do not bypass your own process, beyond a measure of personal discipline?
