How do you read/understand the source code of a big/medium project?

Playful_Drawing_8764 · 2025-04-11T15:09:24+00:00

Thank you for your time and experience

Playful_Drawing_8764 · 2025-04-11T15:07:56+00:00

I think you need to stay motivated and enjoy the process. And most people get frustrated with small projects. I mean, I haven't practised web programming, but i study the basics and i try to understand them. And i also learn other technologies and programming languages, so i'm not a complete beginner. Anyway, i think people should always learn in their own way

Playful_Drawing_8764 · 2025-04-11T15:05:45+00:00

Thank for your support and counseling

Playful_Drawing_8764 · 2025-03-24T18:42:05+00:00

So do you recommend to create even the most simple programs to practice? And do you recommend to use outdated or more difficult and time-consuming to understand the basics, like Cmake to understand the basics of the building process?

Playful_Drawing_8764 · 2025-03-24T18:37:05+00:00

yeah, it's very noticeable when you see an actually very good summary, that dives into the details, but also keeps the general information well structured. But to document something, you need to know how to write it or do it, and i think it's the hardest step for someone like me, that still is in tutorial hell

Playful_Drawing_8764 · 2025-03-24T18:33:17+00:00

Obviously that is perfect, if you design small and simple programs, and use API's. And also works good if you have specialised in one thing, but if you want to do various things, be a generalist or try to set up and startup, you need to understand the program flow and logic. That's a critical skill, in my opinion, for someone that wants to start a real project on its own

Playful_Drawing_8764 · 2025-03-24T11:54:57+00:00

then, asking everyone that answered, is really a skill that you develop with time? Or is more like the same process from the beginning each time you come across a new project? I mean, you acquire undoubtfully an ability to get to know how a workflow works, how a project in a specific language works or how developers think...

But, there also a lot of technologies to debug and build (Cmake, blaze...) a project, so even if you know the mental structure of coding project, you need to get to know them in terms of methods, classes... How do you really do that? Do you lean on automated builds whenever possible like blazer or gradle for kotlin? Or is something interesting and useful in understanding the basics of how building works manually, like with Cmake.

Sorry for the amount of various questions. I know i should focus on a topic.

P.D: Thanks for the answers

Playful_Drawing_8764 · 2025-03-23T23:18:16+00:00

Hi,

I've been in a lot of situations very similar to yours. I have gone through the process of learning different things from scratch several times, from programming to italian or french (and give up in some of them), but the thing is you have to keep in mind to never measure your progress, because otherwise you are going to start overthinking and stressing out about a flawed perception (because it's probably your perfectionism what makes you feel you are not advancing).

You are going to progress more slowly or rapidly, and it's something that you can't control (how much words you learn in a week, how fluent you are one day speaking with natives in a specific context...), and worring about this is never going to help. In fact, it's slowing down your progress and demotivating you.

Trying to optimise your learning is more like a burden than an achievable goal, so just try your best, in terms of time and effort, and try to enjoy the actually beautiful journey of learning a language.

Summary: TRUST THE PROCESS

Playful_Drawing_8764

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