3 ms·
In my career, almost none of my projects have been greenfield, so the debugger is the tool I use to explore the code in action in order to create the mental mod
by failrate 8y ago
In my career, almost none of my projects have been greenfield, so the debugger is the tool I use to explore the code in action in order to create the mental model I can rely on when I dont have the debugger.
- JustSomeNobody 8y agoDebuggers often frustrate me. What I prefer to do is find a point of entry (ie: Button if GUI, or command line argument, etc). I then read through the code from that point of entry, tracing it down to where it goes (db, disk, etc.), logging in my journal key points of interest. I do this over and over until I have a really good idea of the code. Some, things to note. I've worked on code bases that were in the 10s of millions of lines of code (healthcare industry). I still use this technique, but with the understanding I may never have a complete model of a code base that size.
- failrate 8y agoThat is essentially the same approach, but mine is guided by the debugger: I like to watch the state changes as they happen.