
Ask HN: What are some of the ways to learn codebases - hhimanshu
Last time https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=8263402 article appeared in 2014, I wanted to see if there are methodologies that people have adopted not listed in this article?
I would like to hear your experiences. Feel free to contribute here or at https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gist.github.com&#x2F;hhimanshu&#x2F;714962f4205d7dddc7e5991a86412805. I would make notes and update the page. Thanks
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gjvc
Learning a codebase requires fast navigation. ctags or a good IDE help with
that.

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pizza
_" Follow the money!"_ \- but instead of money, follow the data;

\- sort source code by filesize

\- look at the large methods / code blocks

\- browse through the /examples/ and /tests/ dirs to familiarize yourself with
typical usage

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zzzcpan
Runtime call tracing is the missing methodology. I haven't found anything
better over the years and always implement them if I have to learn things
quickly. Made one for nginx even.

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hhimanshu
thank you. Could you elaborate on this method please?

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dsschnau
Biggest thing for me is to talk to whomever wrote it, or if they're not
available, whomever has the most knowledge of the codebase.

