Can you simply ask them to walk through their submission line by line with you, explaining what it’s doing?
This. Code reviews, especially with junior devs, should always be done as a conversation. It’s an opportunity to learn (from both sides), not just a a bunch of “bad implementation. rewrite” thrown in the PR.
Completely agree! It’s SO much easier to lighten the mood and keep things upbeat and productive in an actual conversation vs. just text-based feedback. For example it makes it easy to throw in self-deprecating anecdotes of your own when discussing mistakes / needed changes, which can really help put juniors at ease. It’s just worlds better in >90% of scenarios.
This. Code reviews, especially with junior devs, should always be done as a conversation. It’s an opportunity to learn (from both sides), not just a a bunch of “bad implementation. rewrite” thrown in the PR.
Completely agree! It’s SO much easier to lighten the mood and keep things upbeat and productive in an actual conversation vs. just text-based feedback. For example it makes it easy to throw in self-deprecating anecdotes of your own when discussing mistakes / needed changes, which can really help put juniors at ease. It’s just worlds better in >90% of scenarios.