How do you cope with code review security and performance challenges in remote or distributed teams?

Secure, Optimize, Collaborate! ???? I'd address security risks by enforcing strict code review policies and using automated tools for vulnerability scanning. Tackling performance issues involves setting clear benchmarks and continuously profiling code. Overcoming communication challenges in remote teams requires effective platforms like Slack or GitHub for transparent, asynchronous discussions. Embracing these as learning opportunities, guided by insights from "The Pragmatic Programmer" by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas, ensures continuous improvement in security, performance, and team dynamics in distributed environments.

At my current job, my team has a clear policy for the process to be followed before merging and deploying code. That is a mix of checking tools and rules with a written policy on how to: - create a develop branch - create a PR - when to merge the code into the default branch (we should wait for testing pass in lower environment) - when to create a release candidate branch Some rules we have are: - require a link to the ticket related to the code change being made - automated build passes (with all checks) I understand that the main challenge here is when that work is performed in really small companies where there is no dedicated people to look at that and facilitate the developer work.

Security risks in code reviews can include potential vulnerabilities in the code, unsafe data storage, and incorrect handling of personal identification information. These risks can be mitigated through a thorough code review process, automated vulnerability management, and comprehensive input validation.

In my experience, mainly working for US companies at Financial Services Industry that should be compliant with a lot of rules, I had to work connecting to virtual machines to perform my activities which might cause bad experience to the developer. I agree that keep all the team at a minimal reasonable set of hardware, software and network conditions can contribute to a better experience and, consequently, put everyone at same boat. That allied with good tools and a simple and coherent code review process can guarantee the success of your code.

Performance issues in code reviews can arise from complicated code, large pull requests, and inefficient review processes. These issues can be addressed by keeping pull requests smaller than 500 business code lines, automating repetitive tasks, and optimizing the review time.

In my experience, the first rule is to be respectful. That also includes to give value to the other developer work and dedicate time and your value to the change requested. Look at the source ticket, compare with what is being changed, pull the code to your machine and look at that better if necessary. Always recognize the effort of your team even that the current result is not the best yet. That is a process of maturity of the team reflected by the maturity of each member and how they feel safe to receive and give their feedbacks. I understand that when someone give me a feedback in my code is because that person spent some time of their day to appreciate what I did and that is priceless.

For who asks for the code review: Pull requests need to have a good description. If your colleague is not at your side to ask questions while they review your code, your pull request should have all the information they need, what it implements, what decisions you made during development and why. For those reviewing, basically you should review it as you expect others to review your code. Actually dedicate the necessary time to it, be kind and try to understand the reasoning for the decisions made for that code. And more importantly, don't see it as a boring task to find problems in another developer's code, but as an opportunity to learn about the feature, about their coding style, their way of thinking.

Communication challenges in remote or distributed teams can be overcome by fostering a respectful environment where code review is seen as a chance to grow and improve the codebase. Code review should remain a discussion and not turn into a fight. The reviewer should always work with the code, not with its author. The comments shouldn’t sound like blame but like a proposal.

The act of reviewing code itself should be seen as a learning opportunity. You can learn about the feature that was implemented or fixed, about the coding style of your colleague, and so on. Comments on pull requests should be only to point problems, but also to improve your own understanding of that piece of code.

Code reviews offer numerous learning opportunities. They allow software engineers to learn from each other’s work, understand different approaches to solving problems, and gain knowledge from the feedback they receive. Code reviews also foster knowledge sharing which can be incredibly beneficial for the onboarding of new software engineers.

Provide a checklist for potential security issues that should be reviewed by developers as part of the peer code review. Make sure any fix for issues found during code review and penetration testing contains at few test cases to prevent it from being reintroduced.

Other factors to consider include the overall impact of code review on productivity and timelines. Code reviews can decrease the time spent on quality assurance by identifying defects early. Knowing that their code will be reviewed, an author is more likely to write clean and concise code, boosting their productivity. Code reviews also help to maintain a consistent codebase and compliance with all applicable standards, regulations, and style guidelines.