[eyelidlessness]

> Nah, it is review. It is not collaboration, that is just newspeak for review.

Not everything is an Orwellian conspiracy. Some people actually just think about things differently and value different things about them/in their usage. I have experienced very collaborative review processes, probably no more so than on my present team. This…

> expect one person to do stuff and other to comment on in when it is expected to be almost done.

… isn’t at all how our review process works! For even small changes, we’ve typically had a discussion about approach/design before any work begins; for larger changes a more thorough discussion about potential pitfalls and implications. We tend to have chats and review comments intermittently throughout the dev process. Nothing is “almost done” by the time it reaches review.

The thing that’s review is that typically one person is leading a given effort, and one or more people are validating it through the whole process. That is collaboration, and it’s always based in a combined effort to ensure the effort is both productive and successful.

[watwut]

> For even small changes, we’ve typically had a discussion about approach/design before any work begins; for larger changes a more thorough discussion about potential pitfalls and implications. We tend to have chats and review comments intermittently throughout the dev process.

None of that is code review. Like, literally none of that communication and activity counts as code review. Code review just does not mean "discussing design before any work begins".