One of my favorite sayings is "God made programmers in pairs for a reason." Some of my friends will recall me telling them why it's so important that programmers review other programmers' code — and why it's so important that they have other programmers review their code: iron sharpens iron, the lesson of Proverbs 27:17.
"Gee," I can hear some of my friends exclaim, "I didn't think Frank was that into Scripture!" Relax, I'm as ignorant of Scripture as you suspected I was, but I do have friends who are otherwise endowed.
First, however, the background: I remember seeing my Mom getting ready to slice the Sunday roast: she would take two carving knives and whisk them rapidly together — snick snick snick snick — blade-to-blade alternating edges. Both knives got sharp. I didn't know why, and it wasn't important until many years after she left us.
When I mentioned this technique to a friend and colleague, Don Ohlin, years later as a justification for holding informal (at least) code reviews, his response was "Proverbs 27:17." As you might have anticipated, my response was "Huh?"
"As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another," he replied.
Whatever your opinion of the Bible, there's a heap o' wisdom nestled within.
Now, schedule the damn code review and stop stalling.
P.s.: God made parents in pairs for very much the same reason.
