Jumping into an existing codebase

Go Time: Golang, Software Engineering

Jumping into a codebase you’re unfamiliar with can be challenging. Are there better & worse ways to go about it? In this episode, Ian gathers a panel (Johnny, Kris & Jon) to discuss the ins & outs of familiarizing yourself with an existing codebase.

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Featuring:

• Ian Lopshire – GitHub, X
• Kris Brandow – GitHub, X
• Johnny Boursiquot – Website, GitHub, X
• Jon Calhoun – Website, GitHub, X

Show Notes:

• DAO acronym

Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Luvut

1. It's Go Time! (00:00:00)

2. Meet the co-hosts (00:00:44)

3. Tests (00:01:26)

4. Assume the documentation is bad (00:07:26)

5. Sponsor: Changelog News (00:12:00)

https://changelog.com/news

6. Consulting (00:13:51)

7. Using your mouse (00:17:15)

8. Quality of tests (00:18:03)

9. Acronyms (00:27:08)

10. Lack of comments (00:28:03)

11. When things aren't ideal (00:35:51)

12. An archivist (00:39:04)

13. Consistency vs improvements (00:48:03)

14. What if there are no tests? (00:53:39)

15. What if it's not testable? (00:55:22)

16. Mitigating risk (00:56:08)

17. Rewrites (01:03:31)

18. Unpopular opinions! (01:14:30)

19. Kris' unpop (01:15:05)

20. Johnny's unpop (01:21:44)

21. Outro (01:26:30)