3 ms·
This skill is what differentiates really good developers from not so good developers (that may wrongly believe themselves they are good): How good are you at
by havkom 5y ago
This skill is what differentiates really good developers from not so good developers (that may wrongly believe themselves they are good):
How good are you at reading code, finding out how smaller parts work in a larger system and understanding the context&domain is a large part in how good you are.
Not so good developers, when they are not so good at this, often start blaming the system and people who have worked on it.
Not so good developers may however be able to handle smaller systems (in particular ones written in their favorite tech stack), and this experience leads them to erroneously believe they are good.
- havkom 5y ago
- antoineMoPa 5y agoMaybe your comment is off topic? We are talking about searching. You are talking about good vs not good developers and understanding code. Searching != understanding.
- havkom 5y agoKnowing how to search in a large code base is a large part of this and could be included in what ”good at reading code” means.
- carapace 5y agoYou can't search without a recognizer and you can't recognize without some kind of understanding. As OP says, one of the skills/talents that differentiates good vs not good developers is the ability to rapidly "grok" enough of a large codebase to figure out "where to tap". ( https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/03/06/tap/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/03/06/tap/ )
- alecbz 5y agoI think the gist of your comment is reasonable, but it reads as kind of adversarial. Something like: > Being able to navigate a large, complicated code base is a really important skill, and I think one of the important marks of a senior engineer. A big part of it is also just having the grit to dive in and understand a messy system without having things neatly laid out for you. Says ~mostly the same thing, but without the condescension.