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Last active April 28, 2022 01:10
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Keep Your Pull Requests Small, Explained Mathematically
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Pull Requests
It takes exponentially longer for a developer to review pull requests as they become more complex,
this is a simple model of the relationship:
t = k**n
t: time to complete code review
k: the number of files
n: the number of changes per file
This model demonstrates that smaller PRs are much faster to review. For example:
If you need to change 10 files and an average of 4 changes per file,
it will take 10**4 or 10,000 developer-time units to review the PR
If you can split that in half to 5 files, with an average of 4 changes per file,
it will take (5**4 + 5**4) or 1,250 developer-time units to review the PR
By splitting the PR in half, the time it takes to review it drops by nearly an order of magnitude (8x).
@saintx
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saintx commented Apr 28, 2022

Couldn't agree more.

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