The Diff Should Fit in Your Head

A pull request is a question
you're asking another human.

Make it a question they can answer.

Five hundred lines is not a question.
It's a demand.
The reviewer skims, approves, and hopes.

The small diff gets read.
The read diff gets caught.
The caught bug never ships.

If the change is big,
that's not a reason to send it big.
It's a reason to cut it into pieces
that each stand on their own.

Ship the refactor.
Then ship the behavior.
Never both in one breath.

A good diff fits in one head at one sitting.
Anything larger is trust, not review.

– Serguey Asael Shinder