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Ask HN: What source code is worth studying?

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Re: Ask HN: What source code is worth studying?

#91

Post by zipfle »

wirelessest wrote: post #73
Dewie wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we can't all be the best.

Not at first. But work with people you like and respect, and learn from them. Then ask them when looking for your next job. Any place worth working isn't looking for the absolute best candidate for X at any cost. A good fit with someone with a good work ethic who wants to learn always works out better than just raw expertise. And a reference from someone you both respect is the fastest most reliable place to find the…

Whenever I hear this, I find I don't recognize the world the poster lives in. Is it a thing to tell coworkers when you're looking for a new job? If not, how many jobs do you need to have and leave before you have a big enough network for this to be a viable strategy? How do you get those jobs?

Re: Ask HN: What source code is worth studying?

#94

Post by sillysaurus3 »

supercoder wrote: post #84
e12e wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> == Tarsnap == > How to write C. Study the "meta," that is, the choice of how the > codebase is structured and the ruthless attention to detail. Pay > attention to how functions are commented, both in the body of the > function and in the prototypes. I just had another look at the tarsnap source code, and while I know Percival is a great guy, and I can't imagine him suing over "mis-use", the bulk of the code is unde…

Relax

Actually, it's an important point. One way to learn a given coding technique is to copy-paste it into your own project, modify it until it works, and then delete it and re-implement it yourself. (The "delete and then reimplement it yourself" is the important part. Don't just copy-paste code!) That way you can build up an understanding of the code as you go, without having to understand it in its entirety from scratch. Understanding it in its entirety from scratch is the better way, because it gives you a deeper understanding, but people learn in different ways.

Anyway, illegal is illegal, and copy-pasting from Tarsnap would be illegal. I didn't know Tarsnap was under a restrictive license. It's a shame that people will have to be so careful when learning from Tarsnap, as it's a paragon of modern C best practices, but maybe the license is shrewd.

Though I wish the mentality of "my competitors might steal the code!" will die its deserved death, since evidence thus far suggests it's just paranoia. For example, the codecombat guys open sourced everything and have been fine: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7015126 (But of course that's easy for me to say when I have no competitors to worry about!)

Re: Ask HN: What source code is worth studying?

#97

Post by kjs3 »

I learned a huge amount about how real operating systems are put together and the compromises that get made by reading the V6 Unix source via John Lions Commentaries (yes...I had a photocopied copy). Made exploring the BSD 4.2 and 4.3 source trees (another worthwhile exercise) much easier. I suppose if I was starting out today and not in 1985 I'd look at xv6 or Minix.

Re: Ask HN: What source code is worth studying?

#98

Post by twunde »

For PHP, I've been very impressed by Phabricator's code (and the related phutils library). It's worth looking at the git commits as well to see just how clean and structured commits can be. I'm much more impressed by it than by any PHP framework code I've read (and I've read Zend, Symfony2, li3, codeigniter as well as custom frameworks)
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