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I find reading the source of things can be incredibly helpful in some cases, but when I want to really grok something, I need to write code myself. When I'm jus
by nicholasjbs 12y ago
I find reading the source of things can be incredibly helpful in some cases, but when I want to really grok something, I need to write code myself. When I'm just reading code it's easy to trick myself into thinking I understand something, but it's much harder to do that if I have to make a piece of code work correctly.
Peter Seibel wrote a great post on code reading, which hits on a similar point: http://www.gigamonkeys.com/code-reading/ http://www.gigamonkeys.com/code-reading/
- caipre 12y agoI was referring more to the "ran hundreds of experiments" than the "understanding by implementing." I agree wholeheartedly that actually making something reveals far more about a problem/solution than would simply reading about it.