Nobody warned me the job is mostly reading code, not writing it.
Every course trains you from a blank file. Then you start the job and spend your first month just trying to understand a codebase someone built over five years. I was so much slower at reading than writing, and it quietly wrecked my confidence early. If I could go back I'd spend real time reading open-source repos instead of doing my tenth from-scratch project. Anyone have a method for getting oriented in a huge unfamiliar codebase fast?
3 comments
- 0
AnonymousAnon Reading code is a skill you can deliberately practice, and almost nobody does. When I started reading PRs I wasn't even assigned to — just to see how the seniors solved things — my own writing got noticeably better and the codebase stopped feeling like a maze. Treat it as the main event, not the chore before the "real" work.
- 0
AnonymousAnon So true it stings. I'd add: get friendly with git blame and reading old PRs. Half of 'why on earth is this code like this' is answered by the pull request that introduced it and the discussion underneath.
- 0
AnonymousAnon What helped me: pick one real feature and trace it end to end, from the click all the way to the database and back. Don't try to swallow the whole repo, just follow one thread through it. Stepping through with a debugger is worth ten hours of staring.