Creating a project is challenging and fun, while maintaining the project is where you figure out what tech debt REALLY means. It can be a great way to sharpen your skills as a developer and learn from previous developer's designs and implementations. It can also be incredibly overwhelming to jump into a new codebase head first. 

Bashbunni can often be found hopping between up to ten different programming projects in the span of a week. This is what she's learned along the way.

Related links:
https://sourcegraph.com/search

My other corners of the Internet:
https://mastodon.social/@bashbunni
https://github.com/bashbunni
https://twitter.com/sudobunni
https://twitch.tv/bashbunni (not very active atm)
https://discord.com/invite/Y3vbKS4K9j

Chapters:
0:00 the struggle bus
0:38 get good with your tools
0:59 fighting with doom emacs
1:25 how I search a codebase
1:59 SOS: no documentation or tests
2:23 programmer's chicken scratch
2:33 example notes
2:50 helping future bunni
3:03 summary
3:35 byebye

#opensource #programminglife #programming

YouTube

Working on unfamiliar open source projects can be tricky. Here are some tips to understand and contribute effectively: get proficient with debugging tools, use tests to understand functionality, rely on search functions to find key parts of the code, and draw mind maps to visualize data flow and relationships. Additionally, look at how functions are used in other projects if documentation is lacking.

understand ANY programming project (from an open source maintainer)

Solid advice. Ended up doing much of these as habits as I went company to company, codebase after crazy codebase. Though I think I should look more into tests.

this is all incredible advice, totally agree on all points. debugging is one of the most useful tools you have in your arsenal.

Keep sharing, this is great content