Code Review For and By Scientists
This addresses the problem of improving code quality and collaboration in scientific research, though it is incremental as it builds on existing code review practices by adapting them to a specific domain.
The paper tackled the challenge of implementing code review practices among scientists, finding that scientists are enthusiastic about code review but require demonstrations to understand its value, and that small, just-in-time reviews are more effective than large-scale end-of-work reviews.
We describe two pilot studies of code review by and for scientists. Our principal findings are that scientists are enthusiastic, but need to be shown code review in action, and that just-in-time review of small code changes is more likely to succeed than large-scale end-of-work reviews.