Interview with Alberto Bacchelli
What Do Code Reviews at Microsoft and in Open Source Projects Have in Common?
Alberto Bacchelli will give a talk about What Do Code Reviews at Microsoft and in Open Source Projects Have in Common? at FOSDEM 2016.
Q: Could you briefly introduce yourself?
I am Alberto Bacchelli. I am Italian and, after getting my PhD in Switzerland, I work as assistant professor at Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands. My main field of research is software engineering, or how to make the development of software easier and more effective.
Q: What will your talk be about, exactly? Why this topic?
I am going to talk about code review, the main focus of my academic research. In particular, you are going to see what I found manually analyzing the code reviews done at Microsoft and in two open source software systems; there are some striking similarities.
Being software developers, you know that code review is really important to ship good quality code, but you also know that it is very time consuming, difficult, and, sometimes, not as useful as it could be. With my research I am trying to make code review a more predictable, solid, and supported effort.
Q: What do you hope to accomplish by giving this talk? What do you expect?
I hope to make you aware of the challenges of code review and the current research you can expect to see in the next few years on making your code review effort more effective.
You also will have the chance to discuss your experience with code review and share your ideas on how to improve it. I will be very happy to hear what you think I should focus on!
Q: Are the reasons to do code reviews different in open source projects than at Microsoft?
Q: Do developers in open source projects encounter different challenges for code reviews than developers at a company like Microsoft?
Q: In your studies you found that the outcomes of code reviews didn’t match the expectations, both in open source projects and at Microsoft. Do you have some recommendations to make code reviews work better?
You will hear about the answers to all these questions in the talk. I do not want to give any spoilers at this point ;)
Q: Have you enjoyed previous FOSDEM editions?
FOSDEM has a special place in my heart. The first time I participated was back in 2007, while I was an Erasmus student studying one year of computer science in Brussels, at ULB. I became so much fascinated by the talks, the environment, and the people at FOSDEM that I tried to attend multiple times. Even though I was living far from Brussels, I am proud that I managed to be at FOSDEM at least another three editions, after 2007. And now I am even more proud to be on the other side of the stage and bring my research to such a great, enthusiastic, motivated audience. I am sure that it will be a fantastic experience.
Creative Commons License
This interview is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Belgium License.