Ask HN: Working Memory And Understanding

Re:Ask HN: Working Memory And Understanding by brador on Sunday December 18, 2011 @10:13AM (#3366737)

The time spent comprehending could be better spent building your own.

I found this early on after suffering similar problems to yourself with lack of recall.

For example, Early this year I used 3 days trying to find a good multiplayer server side system for my hobby flash games, Didn't understand the ports/sockets jargon and eventually said fuck it and built the thing from scratch in PHP with GETs in under 2 hours. It just works and I know how to fix it if it breaks.

So my verdict - build it yourself, your way. It's faster and you'll learn more. Don't be afraid to try.

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Re:Ask HN: Working Memory And Understanding by mpg33 on Sunday December 18, 2011 @10:23AM (#3366750)

this sounds great...except my day job is bug fixing of an existing software

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Re:Ask HN: Working Memory And Understanding by mattmanser on Sunday December 18, 2011 @10:33AM (#3366767)

Yeah, don't do this. Your co-workers will rapidly come to fear you touching their code if you keep rewriting it all the time.

Try and pick up their 'style' if there's a consistent one and code like them. The way they name their variables, etc. If not it'll just take time. The more you touch particular parts of the code base, the more familiar you'll get with it. The more you work with someone else's style, the more you'll be able to parse it.

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