All of us have known for a long time that code reviews find defects, and that reviews are cheaper and can be more effective than most kinds of testing. In Code Complete, Steve McConnell builds an overwhelming case for code reviews: disciplined code inspections can find between 45%-70% of all defects in code, while even fast, informal reviews can find 20%-30%. Studies at IBM, HP, Microsoft and other places show that it is several times cheaper to find bugs in code reviews than through testing. And evidence keeps coming in to support that code reviews work.

“Reviews catch more than half of a product’s defects regardless of the domain, level of maturity of the organization, or lifecycle phase during which they were applied”. What We Have Learned About Fighting Defects

Recent research into code review practices and advances in tools make reviews more effective and less expensive, and can change the way that we think of code reviews and the way that we do them...

Java Code Geeks : Not doing Code Reviews? What’s your excuse?

I know this sounds stupid but most of the time code review sessions are missed due to agressive deadlines for the next build delvirables.

My experience: even if you don't have much time, as a senior programmer/architect, you need to review programmers' codes at least at their initial contribution in the project, so that you can communicate your standard expectations and gauge their skill. Not after half a million lines later down the project timeline ...

With the use of review tools like SmartBear gaining popularity, let's hope that more and more realize the importance of doing code reviews.

It will be a great experience reviewing code with the code review/peer review tool from CA Software Change Manager.

My team diligently do peer review of code for eaven the trivialest of changes.  We use Reviewboard to manage the review process.  Works very well for us more in improving code quality by getting better code suggestions from peers.  The bugs identified in code review are minimal.  It could be because of the coupled earnest effort to achieve a 100% code coverage through test cases.