Abstract Fairy @AbstractFairy 2024-04-23
is there a video/channel about exploring and reviewing open source code?
like, thereâs a lot to learn from top level gamers commenting on how they play the game, is there smth similar for programming?
Defender @DefenderOfBasic 2024-04-23
There should be! One trick someone taught me was to start with PRs. A PR cuts through a huge code base by showing the relationship between all the relevant places in the code. I always start by finding the closest PR to the thing Iâm looking for
Like when I was trying to find the code in the Godot codebase for touch input I searched âinputâ in the pull requests tab and glanced through a couple
This acts as essentially a map for me. I can see that this one code file plus this config file is where the actual touch input code is, and how the data flows from user input to handling that input
matthijs @MatthijsCox 2024-04-23
Maybe we should find @AbstractFairy a video that shows the whole PR process end-to-end, to show how much non-coding is involved in software development. Issue discussion, GIT, code reviews, testing, documentation, releasing, etc.
Defender @DefenderOfBasic 2024-04-23
Yeah!! I canât point to a thing that exists already (probably does somewhere) but I kind of want to record it. I think Iâve gotten much better at this in past years and it would have been super helpful for past me to see it
I think learning to navigate this has allowed me to deliver a ton of value to my team just by asking questions and saving everyone literal weeks of work
2024-04-21
I do this but a lot of people on my team donât (because itâs annoying and not fun to dig through old PRs) but itâs kind of a super power because I always catch things others donât (only because I go â3 years ago we ran into this edge case. Did you check if itâs still relevant?â)
matthijs @MatthijsCox 2024-04-23
Yeah this is all good stuff. I recall that a colleague once mentioned there exist courses on âthe missed semesterâ that goes into all the stuff that universities often forget to teach regarding coding.