Ask Slashdot: How To Start Reading Other's Code? 254
BorgeStrand writes "I'm reviving an open source project and need to read up on a lot of existing code written by others. What are your tricks for quickly getting to grips with code written by others? The project is written in C++ using several APIs which are unknown to me. I know embedded C pretty well, so both the syntax, the APIs and the general functionality are things I wish to explore before I can contribute to the project."
The only way (Score:2, Funny)
Look straight at the code for a few hours without moving an inch. After that its details should be printed into your brain.
Read someone elses Perl code first (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Test and Break (Score:3, Funny)
If there's a lot of documentation, interpret it like your favorite religious text. Try to hit up some of the old developers from the VCS. :)
Also, I'd like to help
The Great Programmer commanded his bytes to carry their bugs to the bitstream and drown them, or 7 years of seg faulting would follow.
Join the Church of Emacs today!
Try some good quality marijuana (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Test and Break (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Maybe. (Score:3, Funny)
That's when you start reading tea leaves.
Well, at least that's better than reading JavaBeans...
hard to say (Score:4, Funny)