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This is a great point. I am always struck by how there are so many times where, if I could sit down with the original program author for 5 - 10 minutes, I could

This is a great point. I am always struck by how there are so many times where, if I could sit down with the original program author for 5 - 10 minutes, I could understand more from that interactive back-and-forth than several hours of reading code in solitude. This tells me it's not that understanding how that code works is intellectually difficult; rather it's discovering how it works is time-consuming. It would be amazing if you could "interact" with the code about its structure and intent the same way you might interact with its author.

akkartik 12y ago
As it happens, I've been working on something like that. Still pretty half-baked, but send me an email and I'll show you what I have. Email in profile. "There are so many times where, if I could sit down with the original program author for 5 - 10 minutes, I could understand more from that interactive back-and-forth than several hours of reading code in solitude." Peter Naur wrote a paper in 1985 where he conjectured that this seemed to be a universal law. No matter how much documentation authors provided, new programmers still needed to talk to them. http://alistair.cockburn.us/ASD+book+extract%3A+%22Naur,+Ehn,+Musashi%22 http://alistair.cockburn.us/ASD+book+extract%3A+%22Naur,+Ehn...
- joshpadnick 12y ago
  Would love to. Email sent.
mrfusion 12y ago
I always thought it would be cool to record audio the whole time the editor is open, and the programmer would just talk the whole time about his thought process. Then the audio would be broken up and indexed with the source code. So you could choose to hear what the author was saying right when he was working on a certain area of the code. (You'd normally turn it off, but if you're really stuck it might be a good last resort.)
- Swizec 12y ago
  I do this with a notebook. When I'm coding I always jot down notes and thoughts. As long as you can remember the date when something was coded, you can see what I was thinking while writing it. Has helped me figure out what the hell I'm doing many a time.
awongh 12y ago
Could it also be that the structure and intent of the code is ambiguous even to the author? I often feel this way when reading code, and also writing code or explaining it to others....
Rapzid 12y ago
It also doesn't help that very few projects bother documenting for developers. I believe some traditional UML tactics and other documentation could often not only help with on boarding developers but also lead to a realization of just how convoluted the structure is currently.

akkartik 12y ago

As it happens, I've been working on something like that. Still pretty half-baked, but send me an email and I'll show you what I have. Email in profile. "There are so many times where, if I could sit down with the original program author for 5 - 10 minutes, I could understand more from that interactive back-and-forth than several hours of reading code in solitude." Peter Naur wrote a paper in 1985 where he conjectured that this seemed to be a universal law. No matter how much documentation authors provided, new programmers still needed to talk to them. http://alistair.cockburn.us/ASD+book+extract%3A+%22Naur,+Ehn,+Musashi%22 http://alistair.cockburn.us/ASD+book+extract%3A+%22Naur,+Ehn...

joshpadnick 12y ago
Would love to. Email sent.

mrfusion 12y ago

I always thought it would be cool to record audio the whole time the editor is open, and the programmer would just talk the whole time about his thought process. Then the audio would be broken up and indexed with the source code. So you could choose to hear what the author was saying right when he was working on a certain area of the code. (You'd normally turn it off, but if you're really stuck it might be a good last resort.)

Swizec 12y ago
I do this with a notebook. When I'm coding I always jot down notes and thoughts. As long as you can remember the date when something was coded, you can see what I was thinking while writing it. Has helped me figure out what the hell I'm doing many a time.

awongh 12y ago

Could it also be that the structure and intent of the code is ambiguous even to the author? I often feel this way when reading code, and also writing code or explaining it to others....

Rapzid 12y ago

It also doesn't help that very few projects bother documenting for developers. I believe some traditional UML tactics and other documentation could often not only help with on boarding developers but also lead to a realization of just how convoluted the structure is currently.