Another good one for the responsible coder. Code reviews are a tricky thing. They can improve software quality tremendously; two know more than one, obviously. However, it is all too easy to invoke bad feelings in the reviewee (if you think, "They should just grow thicker skin, it's not personal", this is especially for you). The simple fact of the matter is, coders are people too, and following some easy tips when doing reviews can go a long way to improve (or at least not reduce) the moral of the team and thus the code quality.
There are many online comments, posts, and tweets by prolific engineers expressing that their feelings have been hurt by code reviews. This doesn't directly mean that reviewers are trying to be mean. Feeling defensive is a normal, quite human reaction to a critique or feedback. A reviewer should be aware of how the pitch, tone, or sentiment of their comments could be interpreted [...]