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.

Join the discussion

Changelog++ members save 2 minutes on this episode because they made the ads disappear. Join today!

Sponsors:

• Changelog News – A podcast+newsletter combo that’s brief, entertaining & always on-point. Subscribe today.
• Fly.io – The home of Changelog.com — Deploy your apps and databases close to your users. In minutes you can run your Ruby, Go, Node, Deno, Python, or Elixir app (and databases!) all over the world. No ops required. Learn more at fly.io/changelog and check out the speedrun in their docs.

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!

บท

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)