Comments on: One Sure-Fire Way to Improve Your Coding

By: Tiendq

Tiendq — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 13:37:42 +0000

Excellent post, thanks for sharing it :).

I’ve been reading uncountable line of code because reading code is my hobby and also an intrinsic part of my job. Unfortunately although I could choose what code to read as a hobby, in my job I have almost no chance since I read code from other developers in my team and it’s often not so good, if (people think) it’s well-done it doesn’t need me as a code reviewer :).

By: tony

tony — Sun, 22 May 2011 23:40:59 +0000

That’s pretty well how I learn. I read online tutorials, read other people’s code, and then dive in and try to hack something up.
Of course, I’m pretty well a hobbyist, never went to school for this stuff.
My first language was tcl/tk, and the http://wiki.tcl.tk was the best teacher, making it very easy to learn that language.

By: pols

pols — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 07:01:40 +0000

Thanks for this information.. :).. I enjoyed reading this, very informative article.. cheers!!!

By: Ash Menon

Ash Menon — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 10:09:51 +0000

Epic war-drum background music, anyone? :)

Well said, Master Sun Tzu, well said.

By: Ash Menon

Ash Menon — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 10:08:06 +0000

A brilliant read, Jerod. I’ve never thought about it before, but I now realise that my biggest leaps in code-learning were when I had to work with an open-source script or a plugin that either didn’t do exactly what I wanted, or was broken and the support behind the plugin/code wasn’t enough. I had to go in and dissect it and find out what made it tick so that I could make it work the way I wanted it to. I’ve never thought to ACTIVELY try this.

I am SO bookmarking this.

By: Ash Menon

Ash Menon — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 10:05:46 +0000

That was an awesome play on words. I have to remember that :)

By: Jeff Dickey

Jeff Dickey — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 06:39:37 +0000

One of the problems I regularly run into with code reading is the “this really needs fixing” infinite time sink. (This particularly applies to older code in PHP, Java or any other language that’s undergone significant change since the code in question was written; nobody in their right mind writes PHP 5.3 code the way they’d write the same code for PHP 4 when it was new and shiny.)

One helpful thing I’ve started doing when reading Other People’s Code that doesn’t have “properly complete” testing support is to add that using PHPUnit/JUnit/NUnit/LSMFT/your tool of choice. Benefits include:
– being able to prove that you have at least some understanding of the entire codebase (using coverage testing);
– being able to prove that any changes you make (whether refactoring or new features) have exactly and only the effects you intended; and most significantly
– being able to give something back to the community within which the code was found.

That last item is a beautiful Trojan Horse; I’ve helped a fair number of talented but under-disciplined hackers become test-infected and move on to being more deliberate craftsfolk of high-quality code that their community can be proud of. And that’s a fantastic feeling.

By: One Sure-Fire Way to Improve Your Coding - Monday By Noon

One Sure-Fire Way to Improve Your Coding - Monday By Noon — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 14:19:30 +0000

[...] One Sure-Fire Way to Improve Your Coding | Fuel Your Coding. [...]

By: Karianne Berg

Karianne Berg — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 20:37:46 +0000

Great blog! Good to see more people have thoughts around this. I wrote about this in the book “97 things every programmer should know”.

By: Jerod Santo

Jerod Santo — Mon, 31 May 2010 14:59:22 +0000

I think Terry was being a bit facetious, but you are right, Nicolas.

By: Nicolas

Nicolas — Mon, 31 May 2010 05:36:14 +0000

If you learn a trick from GPL code, you can rewrite it yourself using the same idea. GPL doesn’t work like patents; it affects code, not ideas. You can reimplement the same idea yourself and license it as you wish.

By: iron59

iron59 — Mon, 31 May 2010 01:54:57 +0000

I’ve been working as a software engineer for 3 years. All of those years, reading sample codes or at times small open source projects codes have been my bestfriend in software development. I believe in the significance code reading skills. It makes the developer more independent. What’s more fun is debugging source code of others. Fixing a bug from a code without asking any questions from the code author himself / herself gives such level of fulfillment.

By: Rxantos

Rxantos — Sat, 29 May 2010 20:36:37 +0000

Know yourself. (your skills and flaws as a programmer).

Know your enemy. (the problem you intent to solve)

Know the terrain. (API, language, OS, libraries)

Become invinsible. (eliminate your flaws by learning)

Act. (program, debug, betatest, etc)

and you will win the battle. (finish the program and ship it)

By: One Sure-Fire Way to Improve Your Coding | Fuel Your Coding « Blog Weblog

Fri, 28 May 2010 18:00:24 +0000

[...] May 28, 2010 · Leave a Comment Another good one: One Sure-Fire Way to Improve Your Coding | Fuel Your Coding [...]

By: Jerod Santo

Jerod Santo — Fri, 28 May 2010 17:39:53 +0000

Good point Tim, I couldn’t agree with this more. I have been dabbling with Erlang for this very reason.