Why Pull Requests Are A BAD IDEA

Dave Farley argues that pull requests hinder continuous integration and suggests synchronous code reviews and pair programming as better alternatives.

Pull requests are widely used. Most teams create a pull request somewhere on their route to releasing change. They see them as the only way to conduct code reviews, but they are not. Pull requests were invented to manage large, open-source projects, but working within an organisation with a team is not the same thing as open-source programming. In general, our advice is don’t do pull requests, but why is that, and what should you do instead? In this episode, Dave Farley, author of Continuous Delivery and Modern Software Engineering explores the idea of pull requests and the issues that they raise. Dave offers several alternatives and discusses the pros and cons of each, ending up with some concrete advice on what you should do instead. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Also from Dave: 🎓 CD TRAINING COURSES If you want to learn Continuous Delivery and DevOps skills, check out Dave Farley's courses ➡️ bit.ly/DFTraining 📧 Get a FREE guide "How to Organise Software Teams" by Dave Farley when you join our CD MAIL LIST 📧 The best way to keep in touch with the latest discussions, events and new training courses, get FREE guides and exclusive offers. ➡️ subscribepage.com/organise-teams-guide _____________________________________________________ 🔗 LINKS: DORA - State of DevOps ➡️ devops-research.com/research.html DevOps Handbook ➡️ amzn.to/2LsoPmr “Pair Programming – The Most Extreme XP Practice?" ➡️ davefarley.net/?p=214 “Pair Programming for Introverts” ➡️ davefarley.net/?p=267 “Pair programming improves flow” ➡️ journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0735633120949788 ‘The Case for Collaborative Programming’ Nosek’ ➡️ bit.ly/1J6LrAP Strengthening The Case for Pair Programming’ Williams, Kessler, Cunningham & Jeffries ➡️ collaboration.csc.ncsu.edu/laurie/Papers/ieeeSoftware.PDF ‘Pair Programming is about Business Continuity‘ Dave Hounslow ➡️ bit.ly/1Pk0JFW _____________________________________________________ 📚 BOOKS: 🚨 📖 Dave’s NEW BOOK "Modern Software Engineering" is now available here ➡️ amzn.to/3DwdwT3 In this book, Dave brings together his ideas and proven techniques to describe a durable, coherent and foundational approach to effective software development, for programmers, managers and technical leads, at all levels of experience. 📖 "Continuous Delivery Pipelines" by Dave Farley paperback ➡️ amzn.to/3gIULlA ebook version ➡️ leanpub.com/cd-pipelines 📖 The original, award-winning "Continuous Delivery" book by Dave Farley and Jez Humble ➡️ amzn.to/2WxRYmx NOTE: If you click on one of the Amazon Affiliate links and buy the book, Continuous Delivery Ltd. will get a small fee for the recommendation with NO increase in cost to you. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHANNEL SPONSORS: Equal Experts is a prod