Amen.<p>Another huge cost of code reviews is distraction. We&#x27;ve all seen the Paul Graham essay on maker&#x27;s schedules vs. manager&#x27;s schedules. We&#x27;ve all read the statistics on how much time is lost to interruptions. Code reviews are a massive interruption, done on a manager&#x27;s schedule. Each code review is a distraction, and can take a significant time commitment, if it is to be a meaningful review.<p>A few years ago, I worked at a company with a strong emphasis on code reviews, and it turned into a waste of time when people couldn&#x27;t afford to waste time. You&#x27;d have to do the review, but you really needed to get back to your development or bug-fixing because of the impending hard deadline, so there would be non-commital non-review reviews such as &quot;looks good to me&quot;, or &quot;I see no problems&quot;. While a good code review can be valuable, these perfunctory ones are a huge waste of time.<p>Finally, code reviews sometimes substitute for design review, which catches the most serious problems much earlier. At this same company, it drove me crazy that we always had time for code reviews, but never for design reviews.