I was recently tasked with making some small incremental changes to a large code base that I was not familiar with. I was successful specifically because I coul

I was recently tasked with making some small incremental changes to a large code base that I was not familiar with. I was successful specifically because I could see the existing implementation and use it as a template for making the necessary changes. For example, if I had to add a widget to a form, I could copy the implementation of an existing, similar widget and then make the necessary changes to it. Similarly, I had to change the datatype of a field from string to integer all the way from the UI back to the database. This was fairly easy because I could make the change at one level, and then run the compiler to see what my change broke one level up. Fix, rinse, and repeat. If I had to do any of this without access to the existing code, it would've been 100x harder.