Ryan Markel's presentation at WordCamp St. Louis 2016 emphasizes the importance of code review for maintaining safe, scalable, and readable code within WordPress.com VIP's extensive framework. He discusses the code review process, tools for automatic and manual reviews, and promotes a positive environment for feedback. Markel also highlights that even solo developers can benefit from structured code reviews to enhance their coding practices.

1. CODE REVIEW
WORDCAMP ST. LOUIS 2016

2. RYAN MARKEL
HELLO, WORLD!

3. CODE REVIEW
ABOUT ME
▸ I’m a (really) long-time WordPress user.
▸ I work at Automattic.
▸ On the WordPress.com VIP team.
▸ I can (kind of) code.
▸ With some help.
▸ On a good day.

4. OK; SO WHY DO YOU CARE SO
MUCH ABOUT CODE REVIEW?
AND WHY SHOULD I?
All of you, just now
CODE REVIEW

6. CODE REVIEW IS A
WAY OF LIFE

7. WHAT IS
WORDPRESS.COM VIP?
DIGRESSION:

9. CODE REVIEW
WORDPRESS.COM
▸ Largest single WordPress installation in the world
▸ Serving:
▸ 21.5 billion page views per month
▸ 55.8 million new posts per month
▸ Many millions of sites/blogs

10. CODE REVIEW
WORDPRESS.COM VIP
▸ Enterprise-level WordPress hosting
▸ On the WordPress.com infrastructure
▸ 2.5 billion page views per month
▸ 99.9976% uptime
▸ 349ms average response time

12. CODE REVIEW
WORDPRESS.COM VIP
▸ Sites run on WordPress.com sites, just like yours and mine
▸ Clients have a custom svn repository for their theme
▸ They commit changes to their theme directly to their
directory on WordPress.com
▸ A problem with a WordPress.com VIP site can affect:
▸ Other VIP sites
▸ More of the WordPress.com network

13. WE REVIEW ALL CODE
BEFORE DEPLOYING IT

14. WHY CODE REVIEW?
1.

15. CODE REVIEW
WHY CODE REVIEW?
▸ Safe code
▸ Finding XSS, unescaped and unsanitized code
▸ Scalable code
▸ Smart queries, cached functions, DRY code
▸ Readable code
▸ Coding standards (whitespace, formatting, etc.)
▸ Learning!

16. WE DON’T […] REVIEW TO
ADD MORE TIME TO OR DELAY
YOUR LAUNCH SCHEDULES.
WordPress.com VIP
CODE REVIEW

17. WE DO […] CODE REVIEWS
TO HELP YOU LAUNCH
SUCCESSFULLY.
WordPress.com VIP
CODE REVIEW

18. WHAT DO YOU LOOK FOR
WHEN YOU REVIEW CODE?
2.

19. CODE REVIEW
WHAT DO YOU LOOK FOR WHEN YOU REVIEW CODE?
▸ Validation, sanitizing, and escaping
▸ XSS in Javascript
▸ Uncached WordPress functions
▸ Smart fetching of remote data
▸ Terrifying queries that set databases on fire
▸ Best practices and WordPress coding standards
▸ Typos

20. HOW DO YOU DO CODE
REVIEW?
3.

21. AUTOMATIC CODE
REVIEW

22. CODE REVIEW
AUTOMATIC CODE REVIEW
▸ PHP CodeSniffer
▸ WordPress Coding Standards rules
▸ VIP Quickstart and/or VIP Scanner
▸ Continuous integration testing
▸ e.g., Travis
▸ WP Enforcer

23. MANUAL CODE
REVIEW

24. THE WORDPRESS.COM VIP
CODE REVIEW PROCESS
DIGRESSION:

26. THE “DEPLOY
QUEUE”

27. (REDACTED)

28. CODE REVIEW
WORDPRESS.COM VIP CODE REVIEW PROCESS
▸ Client commits changes to repository
▸ Changeset displayed in a special view that contains:
▸ Commit itself (diff, revision #, repository data, etc.)
▸ Changelog entry for each revision
▸ Reviewer can either:
▸ Open a ticket to discuss the change and leave notes
▸ Deploy or revert as needed

29. CODE REVIEW
WORDPRESS.COM VIP CODE REVIEW PROCESS
▸ 9.5 million lines of code reviewed to date
▸ Over 144 thousand individual deploys
▸ Average time from commit to deploy (this includes
review!) is around two hours

30. THAT’S COOL, BUT WHAT
TOOLS CAN I USE TO
ACCOMPLISH THE SAME?
You, just now again
CODE REVIEW

31. DO YOU USE
GITHUB?

34. PULL REQUESTS ARE LIKE
BUILT-IN CODE REVIEW
OPPORTUNITIES

35. CALYPSO
DIGRESSION:

37. [CODE REVIEWS] HELP TO
KEEP CODE QUALITY
CONSISTENT,
Calypso Project Documentation
CODE REVIEW

38. THEY SPREAD OWNERSHIP OF
THE CODE,
Calypso Project Documentation
CODE REVIEW

39. AND THEY HELP EVERY
PERSON WORKING ON
CALYPSO IMPROVE OVER TIME.
Calypso Project Documentation
CODE REVIEW

40. CODE REVIEW
CALYPSO
▸ Pull requests are peer reviews waiting to happen
▸ Stay positive - comment on the code, not the person
▸ Have a list of things to look for in code review
▸ Checklists are your friends
▸ When you are creating a pull request
▸ When you are reviewing and (hopefully) merging it

41. YOU NEED
DOCUMENTATION

42. CODE REVIEW […] GREATLY
INCREASED THE QUALITY OF
OUR CODEBASE…
Andy Peatling, WordPress.com Developer Blog
CODE REVIEW

43. …AND HELPED EVERYONE
LEVEL UP THEIR JAVASCRIPT
SKILLS.
Andy Peatling, WordPress.com Developer Blog
CODE REVIEW

44. WAYS TO DO MANUAL
CODE REVIEW

45. CODE REVIEW
MANUAL CODE REVIEW
▸ Github pull requests
▸ No one merges their own PR
▸ Use the comments! They are a great tool!
▸ Line number comments are fantastic
▸ If you don’t use Github or a similar tool
▸ Diff reviews (use a good text editor) - WordPress core!

46. MAKE IT PART OF
YOUR TEAM CULTURE

47. WHAT IF I’M A SOLO
DEVELOPER? WHAT DO I DO?
A few of you, maybe for the last few minutes
CODE REVIEW

48. SLEEP ON YOUR
CODE

49. CODE REVIEW
SELF CODE-REVIEW
▸ Create pull requests or diffs of your own code and queue
them up for review
▸ Don’t merge to master/production/head the same day if
you can help it
▸ Clear your mental context between writing your code and
reviewing your own code
▸ Use automatic code review tools to get you part of the way
there

50. EVERYONE CAN
DO CODE REVIEW

51. WHEN NOT TO DO CODE
REVIEW
4.

52. NEVER

53. REVIEWED CODE
IS BETTER CODE

54. THANK YOU
WORDCAMP ST. LOUIS 2016

55. NO, REALLY; THANK YOU
RYANMARKEL.COM/WCSTL2016
▸ Download of these slides and my
notes
▸ Links to the resources listed and
quoted in this presentation
▸ Contact form so you can reach me
if you have any questions
▸ Lots of blog posts that have
nothing to do with code review,
this talk, or really WordPress at all