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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
by thrower123 7y ago
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 7y ago“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