yesterday, i sat in a fantastic code review moderated by austen. to some degree for the past few times we have been working on his ability to moderate code reviews. let me just say that it is really working out very well.
in my opinion, moderating code reviews is definitely a skill. if you don't think so, then i wonder if you have moderated an effective code review. to be the moderator you need to make sure that the time is spent effectively. also, the most important thing is that you make sure that everyone is learning the whats, whys, wheres, and hows of what is going on. another thing to do is to make sure we don't focus on superficial issues and identify where we can make tangent discussions about design. also, leading the discussion in a positive direction is very important. moderators that just say, "needs fixing, follow the coding standard, moving on" are really not doing an effective job.
for this specific code review we spent a while explaining why coding standards are standards by identifying why specific "rules of thumb" have been created. we also, were able to shift the discussion (almost accidentally) to a larger more important design discussion (a totally awesome design discussion).
anyway... i'm fairly confident that austen has the ability to lead effective code reviews. i really think that it is an invaluable skill for a software engineer that takes practice. this skill combines a lot of the soft skills that i'm talking about.
in my opinion, it takes a deep understanding of not only knowing how to design software but also how to help teach that understanding to other people. that sort of skill separates austen from others.
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