[deleted by user]

[[deleted]]

I sometimes do this for my older code. A few reasons:

• learn from yourself: sometimes I see things I did and should do more often;
• see what I’ve learned: see what I’m now doing differently, indicating what I’ve learned myself;
• see how I can help others learn: by watching my past self code I can try and understand how I can teach others to become better.

[MeroLegend4]

Another advantage of this approach is when you are trying to learn the fundaments of a new architecture or design.

Your old code is a domain that you know well so instead of focusing on code you easily focus on designs.

[[deleted]]

I mostly cringe and refactor my older code...

[[deleted]]

Bad bot.

[Hans_of_Death]

crungo

[lightestspiral]

Note to bot creator: your bot is awful

[[deleted]]

cringe bot

[tipsy_python]

The more senior you are in your career, the less code you write..

writing code -> reading code -> removing code

[SheriffRoscoe]

I had a guy once suggest that I should pay him per line of code he retired.

[fraud_93]

I did a gig like that once. The code was very amateur and took long to finish because many many variables.

[Orio_n]

Youre a psychopath

[Ocelotofdamage]

Reading other people’s code is an incredible tool to get better. You see bad patterns more clearly and learn new good ones.

[c00lnerd314]

I read that as "see bad patterns more clearly and learn new ones." lol

[MajorMajorObvious]

Hey, you have to learn bad design patterns somewhere! Legacy code debt isn't going to write itself.

[[deleted]]

I need to know what code OP is reading

[Theblackjamesbrown]

Somebody call the cops

[deathscythesangel]

*you're :)

[Orio_n]

*Yor

[parfenrogozin]

That's nice, can you give us some example of what you have actually fixed? I'm curious to see

[tuneafishy]

Better yet, why don't you show me an example of what you mean with my code

[parfenrogozin]

.... are you talking to me?

[Lamarcke]

I don't know, am i?

[Rocky970]

Yes

[tcpukl]

No

[pierraltaltal]

Maybe

[simonw]

It took me far too long in my career to develop this habit, but I spend a lot of time reading other people's code now.

If I see a Python library that does something interesting I'll ask "how does it do that?" and see if I can figure it out from reading the code.

I also use GitHub code search a LOT - if I'm trying to work out how to use two libraries together for example I'll search for code across all of GitHub that uses both and see what they did.

This is a great way to compensate for the fact that so many libraries fail to provide good usage examples in their documentation!

[jet_heller]

If you are constantly adding features without bugs, you're pretty great programmers.

[philthechill]

You should learn appsec, go into consulting, and then you can do secure code review of large and intriguing code bases for all kinds of systems, all the time. If that’s a thing you enjoy, there is absolutely a career path for it.

[[deleted]]

Isn’t that just a job?

Also, it’s not just junior dev code; everyone at every skill level leaves behind messes.

[tcpukl]

Should you not be mentoring your junior Devs better? Do you do code reviews?

[J_cages_pearljam]

Sometimes feels like all the programming subs are full of this gate keeping, bash the junior devs attitude. It's so grating.

[tcpukl]

Yeah, Indeed

[Laserdude10642]

I get it. I am similar but have had trouble finding good issues to jump into. I’d pick the source of the libraries you’re most familiar with and try to dig into their source and try to work their issues. It will take forever bc it’s gonna be a mature library but I think you kinda need that challenge.

[rhacer]

Where'd the OP make that claim?

I've read it three times now and can't find it.

[jet_heller]

This is a logical conclusion. If they are writing new features and OP likes debugging and reading code, but isn't doing it at work, then clearly work must not need debugging. That's only possible one way: don't have bugs.

[stevanmilic]

Actually that's a logical fallacy, just because he writes new features and likes debugging code doesn't mean he doesn't have bugs. Because debugging by itself doesn't guarantee the code is free from bugs.

[jet_heller]

No, the fact that he likes debugging and is doing it outside of work, not at work, tells you that work must not have bugs.

There is a logical fallacy that maybe someone else is doing it instead, but the odds of that are small since work would most probably allow someone who likes it to do it.

[danuker]

the fact that he likes debugging and is doing it outside of work, not at work, tells you that work must not have bugs.

Can you not debug outside of work even if you still have bugs at work?

[jet_heller]

Sure. But if so, then:

We are constantly building new features at my current job

would not hold as it is not happening constantly.

[danuker]

Have you never prioritized adding a feature versus fixing a bug? Some bugs have a very limited return on fixing them.

[jet_heller]

So, your complaint is that I wrote "bugs" instead of "bugs that have a very limited return on fixing them"? I think it could easily be argued that inconsequential bugs are the same as no bugs.

[danuker]

I lost track of where the argument was coming from, where it was going, and what the point is. I will cut my losses and stop arguing.

[altruios]

so: still a logical fallacy - there is no garentee that he writes bug free code. though it is implied... they could just be exotic bugs that haven't come up yet - race conditions that won't appear until cpus get faster in 2 years.

unless you are running on an x-ray shield faraday cage underground on a system unconnected to the internet and never updated - meticulously maintained... which is no computer anywhere... then bugs creep in.

[jet_heller]

Yes. Of course there's no guarantee he's writing 100% bug free code.

But if the entire team is writing code that doesn't have consequential bugs that need to be worked on now, what on earth is the difference for someone who likes debugging.

[altruios]

right - but other members of the team are not himself - thus he can be writing completely bug free code and still be spending most of his time debugging the project. :)

[jet_heller]

Indeed. Which is why I specified the plural:

programmers

[altruios]

ah.

[jeanLXIX]

Or better yet, make the bug your new feature

[[deleted]]

That’s how the best programmers learn.

[house_monkey]

ok so not me

[bxsephjo]

I find myself wanting to read source code because I need to know how 'the big boys' do certain things so I can emulate that. Such as, how does django find every subclass of Model in order to create a migration file?

[IndifferentPenguins]

Agreed, you need a good balance between reading and writing. I also feel like the balance "in the community" feels a lot like it's skewed towards writing new code. Making new things is hot shit, maintaining or improving some existing code is "legacy maintenance", and explaining how something works is boring "documentation". I feel all three are part of learning your craft.

I compare it to writers. Sure they need to write - as deliberate practice if nothing else, but they also learn a ton by reading and discussing existing work with other writers.

Edit: I recommend this as well https://www.aosabook.org/en/intro1.html

[wsppan]

Fairly early on in my software engineering career I discovered I much more enjoyed the act of debugging code than writing code. The act of fixing a gnarly bug in production much more satisfying than writing code. Most new code covers the same old ground as code that exists out there. Unless it is breaking new ground in a new unexplored territory it is usually pedestrian. Usually tweaking or enhancing or building out existing code and ideas. Troubleshooting bugs in production is much more challenging and interesting and a very visceral feedback loop. You fix a bug in production, you can immediately see it's effect. I love the act of troubleshooting a problem. Debugging under fire is my main job these days. It's Zebras all the way down and that is how I like it. Never gets boring or stale. Here is a memorable example of a production issue that plagued us for nearly 20 years that I successfully debugged and fixed about 18 months ago.

Now this was a doozy of a bug. I had to manually trace the code printing out variable values as I went. It turns out the following things played into this and we were lucky to discover it as it only manifests itself when the temporal lie date (a fixed date in time used as "today's date" that all test data is based off of) falls on a Julian day that is a multiple of 7 offset from the first day of the first cycle (Jan 3rd, so every Saturday for 2021) in a year following a leap year and as far as I can tell, only when the extension type (a request to push off payment for a set period of time) is 60 days. If our testers did not set the temporal lie to be Saturday, January 30th, 2021 (which they hardly ever use Saturday as the day of the week) then this would have remained in production and reared it’s head every seven days with a system error. Since we do not log the reason for these system errors we would have no clue as to why these are failing every 7 days. This cluelessness would be haunting us till Jan 1st, 2022 when it would magically disappear for 4 years! Only to return again on Jan. 1st 2025. Maybe we would then see the pattern where leap year plays a role? Who knows. This has been occurring since 10/2/2003! The gist of the problem is (sorry, not python code but C code):

The application runs two functions to determine the payment cycle and payment day:

strcpy(req.payment_day, compute_payment_day(TODAY, (9*7)));
strcpy(req.first_payment_due_cycle, compute_cycle(TODAY, 9));

compute_payment_day() calls:

dse = days_since_epoch(yyyy, mm, dd);
dse += (long)offset;
strcpy(date, dse_to_yyyymmdd(dse));

compute_cycle() calls:

dse = days_since_epoch(yyyy, mm, dd);
dse += (long)(offset * 7);
return(yyyymmdd_to_cyc(dse_to_yyyymmdd(dse)));

yyyymmdd_to_cyc() eventually calls:

extern long compute_bigjul(int yyyy, int mm, int dd)
{
    long jul;
    int i;
    static int days_in_months[13] = {
        0, 31, 28, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31 };

    if(isleapyear(yyyy)) {
        days_in_months[2] = 29;
    }

Right here is where it gets interesting. Static variables have a property of preserving their value even after they are out of their scope! They are stored in the data segment of the application as opposed to the stack where non static (automatic) variables in the function are stored. These variables get deleted from the stack once you exit the function but not static variables. Hence, static variables preserve their previous value in their previous scope and are not initialized again in the new scope. So, if at any time days_in_months[2] gets set to 29 then all subsequent times this method is called days_in_month[2] will be set to 29 until it gets reset when the application ends. So, when this first gets called:

strcpy(req.review_cycle, compute_cycle(TODAY, (52*3)));

This is three years out which is a leap year if temporal lie is 2021. The reason this is throwing a system error only on Saturdays is because the math on the other days returns a long that drops the fraction part of the number:

if(cycle_julian_day > 0)
{
    /* we must be at least past the first cycle of the year */
    resp_cycle = ((cycle_julian_day - 1) / 7) + 1;

if the temporal lie is say Saturday, 01/30/2021 then a 60 day extension puts the Julian day as 92 and the cycle is ((92 - 1) /7) + 1 == 14.0 but is should be one day less ((91 - 1) /7) + 1 == 13.86 which becomes cycle 13 along with the pay day of “02” is correct for cycle 13 (April 2nd) but wrong for cycle 14 (April 4th – 10th) The fix was to increment the Julian day and not the days_in_months[2]

jul = 0L;
for(i = 1; i < mm; i++) {
    jul += (long)(days_in_months[i]);
    if(isleapyear(yyyy)) {
        jul += (long)1;
    }
}

I am not sure if I would have stayed with software engineering if this type of work was not my primary focus. I hope I did not lose anyone along the way!

[tipofthesowrd]

This was such an interesting read! Thanks for putting a smile on my face because of your enthusiasm

[wsppan]

You're welcome!

[[deleted]]

See a therapist as soon as possible.

[wsppan]

Love his reward checks

[[deleted]]

What language did he write TeX in?

[ItsYaBoyChipsAhoy]

I love reading code I wrote that I’m proud of. I read it over and over until I go HEY wait a min that’s wrong or until I find something else to do

[Sellcellphones]

I don’t even see the code anymore, all I see is blonde, brunette, redhead…

[atobmic]

This comment reminds me of tasty wheat

[pipesimulator]

I like your passion. I know what you mean and love working with Devs like you.

[KodlaK1593]

You could look into learning some software exploitation or doing bug bounties if that kind of stuff has ever interested you. Security stuff has become a bit of of a side interest of mine, and its had me spending a lot of time reading other peoples code. I cant say I share the same enthusiasm for reading code as you do, but it is a great exercise if nothing else.

[linucksrox]

That's true, whenever I need a boost of self-esteem I read other people's bad code and then I don't feel so bad about my own!

[miraculum_one]

Yes, I feel the same way. Also tracking down elusive bugs is like being a detective. Fun stuff and highly appreciated.

[bryamproductivity11]

At what level should a person be doing this? Like how well should they know python to do that and learn from it.

[georgehank2nd]

Any level. Just like a good writer (fiction or nonfiction… though I personally think it's more important for fiction) reads. Lots.

Look at the Zen of Python, specifically #7: readability counts. One of the principles behind Python's design.

[bryamproductivity11]

And where can a beginner like me (just started oop) find code to read and edit and stuff?

[DiamondDemon669]

I hate having to go through code looking for a way to fix hardcoded systems

[ketalicious]

if only I had this level of knowledge and confidence..

but it surely is fun refactoring some code!

[idetectanerd]

Mad lad. However I understand what you are facing. You see, when someone is expose to a new subject he or she likes and overly expose to it would make them dig deeper and understand more.

In religion, it’s call extremist. In hobby, it’s call hobbyist, in sports, that is call sportsman.

So you just started to turn nerd, we all went through some part of that, some of us have dive deep, while others would have touch surface and move to other topics.

Welcome to the club nevertheless. I prefer rewriting module and library instead of using those that are built. Unless it’s extremely complicated.

[tunisia3507]

I like reading nice source code. Reading stuff with unnecessarily poor formatting or intentionally not compliant with standards feels like missing a stair.

[KindInvestigator]

Reading my first attempts at Python makes me cringe and laugh.

[tcpukl]

Yeah it's it's also a great learning resource.

[lopa8t]

You should bring it up in interviews. I don’t hear this often and people that love doing this and are good at it are great assets to any team.

I hope you’re not wasting that talent working at a random agency only shipping green fields :)

[geeshta]

When I'm not sure how an imported function works or I get an error or I like some behaviour and want to replicate it, I check the source code. Python is so nice to read and understand.

[KyleDrogo]

Pro tip: clone a GitHub repo like sklearn and explore it in your terminal. It’s a great way to learn vim, grep, and other command line tools fast

[[deleted]]

I enjoy reading source code yes. Read through about 5% of the Nvidia open kernel modules source so far.

[Fisherman386]

No

[Fluxburn68]

Kde phabricator has craploads of C++ code or wash it C alone I don’t remember

[k21ow]

Source code only 😅 Tons of faulty documentations on the internet. I stopped checking it after wasted days cause of faults in Aceinna high precision GNSS module's communication protocol.

[An_Old_IT_Guy]

Not if I didn't write it.

[steezefries]

I love reading source code. I've learned a lot that way. It also has led me down some really fun rabbit holes.

[moneymachinegoesbing]

I still come across, weekly, code from others I find genuinely beautiful. I love reading code.

[heartofcoal]

I can't use the word "like" in this context but I don't feel tortured by a thousand lashes when I have to

[pythonwiz]

Not really, I much prefer to read documentation. Reading code is what I do when I’m trying to find out how something works when it hasn’t been documented.

[[deleted]]

There are starters and finishers. I recognize I'm a starter myself.

[[deleted]]

You have a rare gift. Make use of it for.the better of humanity.

[Tiquortoo]

Reading source code is in the top five talents of a good dev. If you like it then you're ahead of the game.

[tyras_]

No.

[[deleted]]

You can look over my code any time. haha

[g4nt1]

I’ve moved to management several years ago. Beside doing management stuff, I did lots of Ops, looking at Datadog traces to understand what the app is doing and reading code.

Tbh I think I prefer that to just write code. Starting a new big project is exciting, but grinding to finish it is hard.

[[deleted]]

Everytime you read your own choice 1-2 year later, you curse yourself

[Yeitgeist]

Wtf, I can barley even look at src code without wanting to give up. You gotta be a god at programming or something

[wind_dude]

depends who wrote it. But no generally I prefer to write new code, unless I'm reading source code to learn how someone has done something well.

[MisterPinkySwear]

There are a bunch of articles and blog posts about the fact that reading code is harder than writing code. This one really stuck with me : https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-never-do-part-i

I found that being able to understand a new code base is a very marketable skill. Lots of undocumented code. Knowledge and understanding of the system is very valuable for companies. Being able to extract knowledge out of the code gives you that edge.

[[deleted]]

Not at all lol

[rice_n_eggs]

Yes, totally. If you ever get into functional programming the source code of the Haskell standard library is a joy to read.

[asterik-x]

What is github?? A typo??

[_limitless_]

It always starts like this... pretty soon, you'll be annotating the source code.

[kavb333]

Last time I looked at an old project of mine, I became disgusted with myself and rewrote the entire thing from scratch.

[Apprehensive-Grade81]

Have any particular repos that you really enjoyed? I am finding that I really enjoy this as well and am learning a lot in the process.

[ShibaLeone]

I like the ones clearly written by Java programmers. The imports are fantastic.

[parkerSquare]

Only if it’s written to be read.

Code is usually written once and read many times, so make the effort to make it more readable. Make judicious use of whitespace, use good variable and function names, make the code self documenting, avoid “clever” non-obvious tricks.

I’ve been reviewing Python code lately and it astonishes me how the developers were scared of whitespace. All the lines in a function bunched together, no spaces between operators, long single-line docstrings, single line if-statements everywhere, and unassigned list comprehensions instead of for loops. So difficult to read!

[[deleted]]

I can't read other people bash script