TE
TechEcho
Home24h TopNewestBestAskShowJobs
GitHubTwitter
Home

TechEcho

A tech news platform built with Next.js, providing global tech news and discussions.

GitHubTwitter

Home

HomeNewestBestAskShowJobs

Resources

HackerNews APIOriginal HackerNewsNext.js

© 2025 TechEcho. All rights reserved.

Ask HN: What are some of the ways to learn codebases

6 pointsby hhimanshuover 8 years ago
Last time https://news.ycombinator.com/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://gist.github.com/hhimanshu/714962f4205d7dddc7e5991a86412805. I would make notes and update the page. Thanks

4 comments

gjvcover 8 years ago
Learning a codebase requires fast navigation. ctags or a good IDE help with that.
pizzaover 8 years ago
<i>&quot;Follow the money!&quot;</i> - but instead of money, follow the data;<p>- sort source code by filesize<p>- look at the large methods &#x2F; code blocks<p>- browse through the &#x2F;examples&#x2F; and &#x2F;tests&#x2F; dirs to familiarize yourself with typical usage
zzzcpanover 8 years ago
Runtime call tracing is the missing methodology. I haven&#x27;t found anything better over the years and always implement them if I have to learn things quickly. Made one for nginx even.
评论 #13463255 未加载
dsschnauover 8 years ago
Biggest thing for me is to talk to whomever wrote it, or if they&#x27;re not available, whomever has the most knowledge of the codebase.