How to Read Code

seangoedecke.com · 1 week ago · 45

The article explains why reading code differs from reading text and argues that engineers should use out-of-order, multi-pass techniques to follow execution flow. It compares large codebases to books, noting that War and Peace has around 600,000 words while many large modern codebases have that many lines. It adds that LLM-generated code and reviewer LLMs still require careful human reading because alignment and technical values can misfit your needs, leading to major errors or overengineered diffs.