So I've been playing around with the online code review tool called Rietveld. You can find a live instance of the tool here. Since the tool is available to any project with a subversion repo, and it was authored by Python's First Interim Benevelant Dictator for Life Guido van Rossum, I had to check it out. Many serious Python developers are afflicted with a quasi-religious zeal to follow whatever the BDFL does or says, and I'm no exception :).

Still, that only gets me to try it out. So what do I think of Rietveld? So far I like it! My workflow with Rietveld goes something like this:

1. Make some changes in my local copy of the svn repository.
2. Call upload.py from the root of the local copy (which inolves authenticating and a comment).
3. Navigate to the issue url (the upload.py tool spits out a URL when it completes). Here is an example.
4. Take a look at the visual diffs (much easier on the eye when compared to a universal diff from email).
4a. Sometimes step 4 prompts me to delete the issue, change some code, and start again at step 1. This may be reason enough to use the tool.
5. Post the issue URL to #jython irc.
6. Check it in.
7. See what comments I get from #5 and act on them.

[Update:] Guido van Rossum pointed out that step 4a is much better accomplished with "upload -i" (This will let you add a new patch set to the same issue. Your reviewers can even see what changed between different patch sets. -- cool!)

So step 6 is probably premature if this was a traditional code review, but I *am* still evaluating, and of course any feedback is still likely to cause future changes (maybe even a rollback if I missed something really bad). Also, so far I am only using it for bigger changes -- again this is just better for evaluation purposes.

Overall I really like the tool, and I plan to continue using it. I am pondering a requirement for patch submissions from non-committers to go through Rietveld, but I still want to try it out for a while before I get serious.