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Keep Your Pull Requests Small, Explained Mathematically
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| 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). |
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Couldn't agree more.