[HN Gopher] Become a Better Developer by Reading Source Code
___________________________________________________________________
Become a Better Developer by Reading Source Code
Author : 0x54MUR41
Score : 55 points
Date : 2020-02-08 14:05 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.stevejgordon.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.stevejgordon.co.uk)
| renox wrote:
| I already _have_ to read source code by doing my team 's reviews,
| and I don't enjoy it.
|
| Maybe it's because of the responsibility (why didn't you caught
| this bug in the review?), but it's really difficult.
| swiley wrote:
| Everyone should try and read busybox. It's a fairly complete
| implementation of a normal "unix" user space without the libc.
| Most commands are completely contained in files less than a few
| thousand lines long and can be read through and completely
| understood in an afternoon. I personally use it for most things
| because of that even if some utilities are a little incomplete,
| being able to double check the source easily makes me feel like I
| won't get surprised.
| thepete2 wrote:
| Why not the GNU or BSD coreutils?
| dastx wrote:
| Presuming because they are significantly bigger compared to
| busybox due to the limited feature set of busybox
| dana321 wrote:
| Had a quick look, found this little gem, a math evaluator with
| precedence.
|
| https://github.com/mirror/busybox/blob/master/shell/math.c
|
| Some funny comments like "Think about it. * It makes sense."
| thrower123 wrote:
| Yes, it is great to read source code. One of the great things
| about most things being on GitHub these days. Also great when you
| can use decompilers (Java and .NET especially) to determine
| exactly how the library code you use works.
|
| One of my favorite exercises though is to port code from one
| language to another. Reading the code gets you to one level of
| understanding. Implementing it yourself while following along
| gets you to another level. But translating it really gets you a
| level of mastery of what the code is doing.
| Ididntdothis wrote:
| "Also great when you can use decompilers (Java and .NET
| especially) to determine exactly how the library code you use
| works."
|
| Decompiling .NET and earlier reading leaked windows source code
| have given me the revelation that the people working on these
| systems are regular people like you and me. Somehow I thought
| MS or Apple code was something special but it really wasn't.
|
| But I agree: reading source code is good for learning and also
| empathy. It's way too easy to look at a code base for five
| minutes and declare this needs to be totally rewritten because
| the previous devs wrote bad code
| thepete2 wrote:
| I want to read some good C code. Can anyone recommend me a
| project that's not too big? I'm thinking of skimming some of
| these core linux libraries [0]
|
| [0] http://linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/view/stable-
| systemd/chapter0...
| dana321 wrote:
| lmdb is one that comes off the top of my head.
|
| But even that the main file is 11000+ lines of code.
| hinkley wrote:
| A big part of me wants Comparative Coding classes to be taught to
| college students. Even though I have a pretty sad cautionary tale
| about Comp Lit classes from a very good friend who went for an
| English degree.
|
| Some of the earliest conversations I recall were about the trap
| of taking Comp Lit too seriously and not spending enough time on
| the craft. Eventually your inner critic creates fear that your
| work isn't good enough, and it becomes a self fulfilling
| prophecy.
|
| I spent the next decade watching helplessly as the inner critic
| ate my friend's hopes and dreams one by one. In her head, she was
| going to be a great fiction writer. But the only thing of hers I
| ever remembered was her persuasive writing. She was passionate
| about her causes, but somehow also had it in her head that this
| wasn't 'real writing', and I didn't have the gravitas to convince
| her she was wrong.
|
| And so the sad fact is that if you look at what I've written and
| shown to people, and what she's written and shown to people, it
| would be charitable to say she's done three times as much as I
| have, to an audience perhaps ten times as large. Me, who only
| briefly wanted to be a writer in grade school, whose only
| college-level English class was a technical writing class.
|
| I am not a Writer, but I write. She is a Writer, and doesn't.
|
| But even so, I've got body parts stuck in this same trap. I write
| a lot less code that some other people. But I also work hard to
| make sure that I'm on the right side of the Pareto principle.
| It's not the lines that count but how you use them, or so I
| reason. But I've started noticing the consequence of that choice,
| and trying to find a new balance between quantity and quality.
| Old habits die hard.
| webdva wrote:
| I synthesized a very small amount of programming ability and
| skill from reading randomly chosen and scattered source files of
| an open source Quake clone's source code (Digital Paintball 2),
| even though its comprehension and understanding it was beyond my
| capabilities at the time, especially at such a young and immature
| age. That tiny amount was negligible, but it still functions
| today as a segment of my present and current programming
| knowledge infrastructure. So you can safely conclude that the
| activity of reading "seemingly" insignificant programming source
| code files is a future knowledge, capability, and understanding's
| becoming-vital infrastructure. For what power does not have a
| base or foundation to plant its feet upon?
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2020-02-08 23:00 UTC)