Many developers often focus solely on writing code, neglecting the importance of being able to read code. How do I know? Because I was one of them!
The ability to read code is a crucial skill for every developer, as we often spend more time reading code than actually writing it. However, reading code is often more challenging than writing code. It requires piecing together the context from various parts and putting yourself in the shoes of the original code author. Fortunately, this skill can be learned. As a software engineer, you have plenty of opportunities to enhance this skill while performing your job:
- Participating in code reviews
- Debugging code that is outside of your area of ownership
- Familiarizing yourself with the code of libraries that you depend on
And, there is also GitHub with thousands of repositories solving problems of all shapes and sizes. You are guaranteed to find something that will interest you and dive in.
Improving your ability to read code will unlock many benefits for you:
- Getting up to speed when changing jobs or teams will be smoother and faster.
- Code reviews will take less time.
- Understanding bugs and fixing them correctly the first time will be easier.
- Knowing how your dependencies work will help you come up with better designs.
- Your debugging will be more effective, especially in cases where you can't debug directly (e.g. missing debug symbols, decompiled code, etc.).
If you feel reading code is not your thing, think again. It might take some time to pick up this skill, but it will serve you for years.
Read more here: https://growingdev.substack.com/p/the-art-of-code-reading
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