3 ms·

It depends on what code you read, though. Think of PHP devs that learn from WordPress, for instance. It's not exactly setting a great example... (Though to thei

It depends on what code you read, though. Think of PHP devs that learn from WordPress, for instance. It's not exactly setting a great example... (Though to their credit, WordPress improved somewhat in recent years.)

sophacles 12y ago
On the one hand, sure this makes some sense, on the other, it maybe means read more code... (i know this sounds sort of snarky). For example, if I wanted to write a novel, and had only read say, _A Tale of Two Cities_ I might thing I needed to include a bunch of broad social statements, and make my point through strongly contrasting scenes and juxtaposition. If I had only read Dickens, I might think writing a novel entailed finding only strange characters, pointing out social flaws. Keeping a thematic style that was about confusing light and dark with the normal associations. And so on. If I had only read Twilight, I wouldn't care much about dialog or character development. I wouldn't understand that there are things you can do thematically without exposition. If however read Dickens, and Hemingway, and Tolkein and Dan Brown, and Stephanie Meyer and ... I would have a different understanding of what could go into a novel. I would be able to see where story arc intersects with bigger themes and character development. I would see different ways of structuring sentences, paragraphs, chapters, and even whole books. None of this reading of course will make me a great author, writing does that, but a wide exposure will certainly help me understand where my writing is working vs where it isn't, it will help me understand how to structure things, help me shape my own work. I consider the same to be true of code. The folks that only read WordPress code have a very limited understanding of possibilities. The folks who have read that, and rails and django, and jekyll and flask and ... will see a wide range of styles, ideas about structure, and so on. An aside: Wordpress has some pretty ugly parts, but there are some ideas in there about structure that I have always liked. Particularly considering it was designed and written during the "explore and figure out what works" phase of web apps, when the industry didn't really have a "best practices for the web" that included lots of experience with what does and doesn't work.

sophacles 12y ago

On the one hand, sure this makes some sense, on the other, it maybe means read more code... (i know this sounds sort of snarky). For example, if I wanted to write a novel, and had only read say, _A Tale of Two Cities_ I might thing I needed to include a bunch of broad social statements, and make my point through strongly contrasting scenes and juxtaposition. If I had only read Dickens, I might think writing a novel entailed finding only strange characters, pointing out social flaws. Keeping a thematic style that was about confusing light and dark with the normal associations. And so on. If I had only read Twilight, I wouldn't care much about dialog or character development. I wouldn't understand that there are things you can do thematically without exposition. If however read Dickens, and Hemingway, and Tolkein and Dan Brown, and Stephanie Meyer and ... I would have a different understanding of what could go into a novel. I would be able to see where story arc intersects with bigger themes and character development. I would see different ways of structuring sentences, paragraphs, chapters, and even whole books. None of this reading of course will make me a great author, writing does that, but a wide exposure will certainly help me understand where my writing is working vs where it isn't, it will help me understand how to structure things, help me shape my own work. I consider the same to be true of code. The folks that only read WordPress code have a very limited understanding of possibilities. The folks who have read that, and rails and django, and jekyll and flask and ... will see a wide range of styles, ideas about structure, and so on. An aside: Wordpress has some pretty ugly parts, but there are some ideas in there about structure that I have always liked. Particularly considering it was designed and written during the "explore and figure out what works" phase of web apps, when the industry didn't really have a "best practices for the web" that included lots of experience with what does and doesn't work.