TL;DR: When you focus code reviews on syntax, you miss architecture, security, design and intent. Problems in view 😔 Syntax fixationDesign blindnessMissed risksBad feedbackUseless discussionsReviewer fatigueFalse qualityShallow feedbackSyntax PoliceLow team morale Syntax fixation Design blindness Missed risks Bad feedback Useless discussions Reviewer fatigue False quality Shallow feedback Syntax Police Low team morale Suggested solutions 😃 Leave the boring work to the IAAutomate style checksReview architecture firstDiscuss intent early with technical analysis and control pointsEnforce review rolesRaise abstraction level Leave the boring work to the IA Automate style checks style checks Review architecture first Discuss intent early with technical analysis and control points Enforce review roles Raise abstraction level Refactorings ⚙️ HACKERNOONRefactoring 032 - Apply Consistent Style Rules | HackerNoonWhen machines generate large amounts of code, you need to apply one consistent style to all files. HACKERNOONRefactoring 032 - Apply Consistent Style Rules | HackerNoonWhen machines generate large amounts of code, you need to apply one consistent style to all files. HACKERNOONRefactoring 032 - Apply Consistent Style Rules | HackerNoonWhen machines generate large amounts of code, you need to apply one consistent style to all files. HACKERNOONRefactoring 032 - Apply Consistent Style Rules | HackerNoonWhen machines generate large amounts of code, you need to apply one consistent style to all files. HACKERNOON Refactoring 032 - Apply Consistent Style Rules | HackerNoon When machines generate large amounts of code, you need to apply one consistent style to all files. HACKERNOONRefactoring 016 - Building With The Essence | HackerNoonPass essential attributes during object creation to reduce mutability and eliminate getters and setters. HACKERNOONRefactoring 016 - Building With The Essence | HackerNoonPass essential attributes during object creation to reduce mutability and eliminate getters and setters. HACKERNOONRefactoring 016 - Building With The Essence | HackerNoonPass essential attributes during object creation to reduce mutability and eliminate getters and setters. HACKERNOONRefactoring 016 - Building With The Essence | HackerNoonPass essential attributes during object creation to reduce mutability and eliminate getters and setters. HACKERNOON Refactoring 016 - Building With The Essence | HackerNoon Pass essential attributes during object creation to reduce mutability and eliminate getters and setters. Context 💬 When you review code, you choose where to spend your valuable human attention. When you spend that attention on commas, naming trivia, or formatting, you ignore the parts that matter. This smell appears when teams confuse cleanliness with correctness. Syntax looks clean. Architecture rots. Sample Code 📖 Wrong ❌ <?php

class UserRepository {
    public function find($id){
        $conn = mysqli_connect(
             "localhost", // Pull Request comment - Bad indentation
            "root",
            "password123",
            "app"
        );

        $query = "Select * FROM users WHERE id = $id";
        // Pull Request comment - SELECT should be uppercase
        return mysqli_query($conn, $query);
    }
} <?php

class UserRepository {
    public function find($id){
        $conn = mysqli_connect(
             "localhost", // Pull Request comment - Bad indentation
            "root",
            "password123",
            "app"
        );

        $query = "Select * FROM users WHERE id = $id";
        // Pull Request comment - SELECT should be uppercase
        return mysqli_query($conn, $query);
    }
} Right 👉 <?php

final class UserRepository {
    private Database $database;

    public function __construct(Database $database) {
        $this->database = $database;
    }

    public function find(UserId $id): User {
        return $this->database->fetchUser($id);
    }
}

// You removed credentials, SQL, and infrastructure noise.
// Now reviewers can discuss design and behavior. <?php

final class UserRepository {
    private Database $database;

    public function __construct(Database $database) {
        $this->database = $database;
    }

    public function find(UserId $id): User {
        return $this->database->fetchUser($id);
    }
}

// You removed credentials, SQL, and infrastructure noise.
// Now reviewers can discuss design and behavior. Detection 🔍 [X] Manual You can detect this smell by examining pull request comments. When you see multiple comments about formatting, indentation, trailing commas, or variable naming conventions, you lack proper automation. formatting indentation Check your continuos integration pipeline configuration. If you don't enforce linting and formatting before human review, you force reviewers to catch these issues manually. Review your code review metrics. If you spend more time discussing style than architecture, you have this smell. Automated tools like SonarQube, ESLint, and Prettier can identify when you don't enforce rules automatically. Tags 🏷️ Standards Standards Level 🔋 [x] Intermediate Why the Bijection Is Important 🗺️ Code review represents the quality assurance process in the MAPPER. MAPPER When you break the bijection by having humans perform mechanical checks instead of judgment-based evaluation, you mismodel the review process. bijection You no longer validate whether the concepts, rules, and constraints match the domain. You only validate formatting. That gap creates systems that look clean and behave wrong. The broken bijection manifests as reviewer fatigue and missed bugs. You restore proper mapping by separating mechanical verification (automated) from architectural review (human). AI Generation 🤖 AI generators often create this smell. They produce syntactically correct code with weak boundaries and unclear intent. AI Detection 🧲 AI can reduce this smell when you instruct it to focus on architecture, invariants, and risks instead of formatting. Give them clear prompts and describe the role and skills of the reviewer. Try Them! 🛠 Try Them! 🛠 Remember: AI Assistants make lots of mistakes Remember: AI Assistants make lots of mistakes Suggested Prompt: Find real problems in the code beyond nitpicking, review this code focusing on architecture, responsibilities, security risks, and domain alignment. Ignore formatting and style. Steal My Prompts (Without Proper Instructions) 📵 ChatGPTClaudePerplexityCopilotYouGeminiDeepSeekMeta AIGrokQwen ChatGPT ChatGPT Claude Claude Perplexity Perplexity Copilot Copilot You You Gemini Gemini DeepSeek DeepSeek Meta AI Meta AI Grok Grok Qwen Qwen Steal My Prompts (With Specific Instructions) 👩‍🏫 ChatGPTClaudePerplexityCopilotYouGeminiDeepSeekMeta AIGrokQwen ChatGPT ChatGPT Claude Claude Perplexity Perplexity Copilot Copilot You You Gemini Gemini DeepSeek DeepSeek Meta AI Meta AI Grok Grok Qwen Qwen Conclusion 🏁 Code reviews should improve systems, not satisfy linters. When you automate syntax, you free humans to think. That shift turns reviews into real design conversations. Related Reading 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👨 https://hackernoon.com/code-smell-06-trying-to-be-a-clever-programmer https://hackernoon.com/code-smell-06-trying-to-be-a-clever-programmer https://hackernoon.com/how-to-find-the-stinky-parts-of-your-code-part-x-i7r34uj https://hackernoon.com/how-to-find-the-stinky-parts-of-your-code-part-x-i7r34uj https://hackernoon.com/code-smell-05-comment-abusers https://hackernoon.com/code-smell-05-comment-abusers https://hackernoon.com/how-to-find-the-stinky-parts-of-your-code-part-xxxv https://hackernoon.com/how-to-find-the-stinky-parts-of-your-code-part-xxxv https://hackernoon.com/code-smell-236-what-to-do-with-excessively-long-code-lines https://hackernoon.com/code-smell-236-what-to-do-with-excessively-long-code-lines Disclaimer: Code Smells are my opinion. Disclaimer: Code Smells are my opinion. opinion Credits: Photo by Portuguese Gravity on Unsplash Credits: Photo by Portuguese Gravity on Unsplash Portuguese Gravity Unsplash Design is about intent, not syntax. Grady Booch Grady Booch HACKERNOON400+ Thought-Provoking Software Engineering Quotes | HackerNoonThe most complete curated collection of software and programming quotes HACKERNOON400+ Thought-Provoking Software Engineering Quotes | HackerNoonThe most complete curated collection of software and programming quotes HACKERNOON400+ Thought-Provoking Software Engineering Quotes | HackerNoonThe most complete curated collection of software and programming quotes HACKERNOON400+ Thought-Provoking Software Engineering Quotes | HackerNoonThe most complete curated collection of software and programming quotes HACKERNOON 400+ Thought-Provoking Software Engineering Quotes | HackerNoon The most complete curated collection of software and programming quotes This article is part of the CodeSmell Series. HACKERNOONHow to Find the Stinky Parts of Your Code (Part I) | HackerNoonThe code smells bad. Let’s see how to change the aromas. In this series, we will see several symptoms and situations that make us doubt the quality of our developments. We will present possible solutions. Most of these smells are just hints of something that might be wrong. They are not rigid rules. HACKERNOONHow to Find the Stinky Parts of Your Code (Part I) | HackerNoonThe code smells bad. Let’s see how to change the aromas. In this series, we will see several symptoms and situations that make us doubt the quality of our developments. We will present possible solutions. Most of these smells are just hints of something that might be wrong. They are not rigid rules. HACKERNOONHow to Find the Stinky Parts of Your Code (Part I) | HackerNoonThe code smells bad. Let’s see how to change the aromas. In this series, we will see several symptoms and situations that make us doubt the quality of our developments. We will present possible solutions. Most of these smells are just hints of something that might be wrong. They are not rigid rules. HACKERNOONHow to Find the Stinky Parts of Your Code (Part I) | HackerNoonThe code smells bad. Let’s see how to change the aromas. In this series, we will see several symptoms and situations that make us doubt the quality of our developments. We will present possible solutions. Most of these smells are just hints of something that might be wrong. They are not rigid rules. HACKERNOON How to Find the Stinky Parts of Your Code (Part I) | HackerNoon The code smells bad. Let’s see how to change the aromas. In this series, we will see several symptoms and situations that make us doubt the quality of our developments. We will present possible solutions. Most of these smells are just hints of something that might be wrong. They are not rigid rules.

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