I have been a software professional since I was in high school in 1998. I'm enthusiastic about open source, and I really enjoy working in unusual software systems or within strange constraints.
Strong agree with a bunch of what you're saying here. Especially for those who really want to up their game, or even enter other spaces in tech (such as technical leadership, architecture, or AppSec), learning to read existing code and understand it quickly is a game-changer.
A well-rounded engineer really needs to be able to both write and read code, finding issues and understanding systems. Regardless of your career goals, those who get the best opportunity and pay can work both green-field and brown-field.
legacy code = new code + time
A fun exercise is to find an open source repository, and just read it. Review the code, understand the system from the code, not from having someone tell you what's going on. Then, once you think you have a good idea of what's happening, reach out to the maintainer and validate your findings. Maybe close an issue or two while you're at it.
thanks, yes i think that's a good idea to gain an idea of how "legacy" code develops and how to start to understand how a system works from just the code. It can be daunting the first time you do it. Fortunately at a company there are people who can support and help but sometimes you have to work on a system that no one knows anything about.
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Strong agree with a bunch of what you're saying here. Especially for those who really want to up their game, or even enter other spaces in tech (such as technical leadership, architecture, or AppSec), learning to read existing code and understand it quickly is a game-changer.
A well-rounded engineer really needs to be able to both write and read code, finding issues and understanding systems. Regardless of your career goals, those who get the best opportunity and pay can work both green-field and brown-field.
legacy code = new code + time
A fun exercise is to find an open source repository, and just read it. Review the code, understand the system from the code, not from having someone tell you what's going on. Then, once you think you have a good idea of what's happening, reach out to the maintainer and validate your findings. Maybe close an issue or two while you're at it.
thanks, yes i think that's a good idea to gain an idea of how "legacy" code develops and how to start to understand how a system works from just the code. It can be daunting the first time you do it. Fortunately at a company there are people who can support and help but sometimes you have to work on a system that no one knows anything about.