All I have done till now is write and read code which was small in size. How do I get started with reading a bigger codebase? For ex. The Chromium Project, etc
Having recently done this what I like to do is perform some actions, and follow it through the codebase. So for example on a web project, what happens when I hit the index page? First it hits the router/dispatcher, it is handed off to this controller, the controller calls the database. Etc.<p>So for the chromium project I'd try to work my way through, by performing an action. Then asking how it is performed, and follow the code through.<p>Hope this helps.
I'm reiterating what's already been said by others, but as more explicit instructions:<p>1. Download the code and figure out how to build it.<p>2. Figure out how to run it.<p>3. Figure out how to attach a debugger to it.<p>4. Figure out where to listen/break for an event whose purpose you pretty much understand (like the initial DNS request).<p>5. Follow the code down the rabbit-hole, you'll be amazed at how quickly it connects you to everything else in the code.
It looks like the git repository is 22GB or 6.5GB without the commit history. I doubt a person can read that much in a lifetime. So I guess the best approach depends on finer grained goals.