Ask HN: What are the “best” codebases that you've encountered?

Windows is so popular just because of stability and completeness of its API. And that is non-disputable I think. Quite few simple and flexible abstractions (handles, WndProc, messages, etc).

I'm thinking more of examples like this: https://github.com/postgres/postgres/blob/master/src/backend...

I just picked this at random from the storage subsystem, but I think it highlights what I mean. The comments are mostly about context. The comment for the routine is about when and who calls it, so that someone that reads the routine has that in mind. The specific line I'm linking to highlights in English prose that the correctness checking on the page headers is just a minimum guard and should not be fully trusted.

Back in the day I would have argued "oh, well, but you could break that into a function called "provisional_page_header_check(..)", or something. But.. there is nothing in the compiler that checks that function names stay in sync with their implementation any more than there is for comments. Writing it as a comment lets you use regular English sentences, breaking out a function takes that away and adds no compiler protection.

It's also.. friendly, somehow, to me. Working in this codebase is like participating in an ongoing and very slow conversation, which feels very pleasant.

I think a common misconception amongst mid-experienced programmers is that they confuse look with quality. Reading clean written code gives you a feeling of control and also the feeling that someone must have thought about that program. It's reassuring. You have in front of you a code that gives you trust.

When in fact, that code can be complete garbage.

The look of the code doesn't matter, what matters is the program. In the abstract meaning of the term. You don't judge a code by reading it, but by running it in your head. Granted you have to understand it in order to do that. Once you understand the code, you run it in your head and that's when quality enter the scene because running it in your head is what you do all day when you code. Some says that you spend most of your time reading code. That's simply not true, the effort is definitely not in reading but in running the code in your head. Basically what I'm describing is a 2 by 2 matrix where there is one column for look bad, one for look good, one row for runs badly in the head and one for run smoothly in the head. Granted, the best may be when both the code looks right and runs right, but don't be mistaken, the real important and difficult part is whether or not it runs well in the head.

A poor quality program may look good, but don't run well in the head. It's too complex or too confusing (in terms of logic, not in terms of presentation) or convoluted or simply wrong in terms of what it's supposed to do. On the other hand good quality code is code that surprises you by the way it runs. It's beautiful in terms of simplicity, it delivers a lot, it's small so that it fits well in the coder's head. And it may look like garbage which is not so important.

You may wonder how to know very quickly the quality of a code base. Run part of it in your head. Contemplate the machinery. Try not to think to much about the language and how it's constructed in this language, try instead to contemplate it in an abstract manner. Be critic, and critic your critics.

You know, even as a guy who loves Windows, this example makes my head explode. We have MoveWindow, SetWindowPos, SetWindowPlacement, DeferWindowPos, ShowWindow, ShowWindowAsync etc. all of which overlap in functionality. Similarly SetActiveWindow and SetForegroundWindow, etc...