Re: Cleaning up other peoples code

From:
Patricia Shanahan <pats@acm.org>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.java.help
Date:
Thu, 08 Nov 2007 12:41:02 -0800
Message-ID:
<fgvs92$195o$1@ihnp4.ucsd.edu>
Robert Hicks wrote:

On Nov 8, 9:13 am, Lew <l...@lewscanon.com> wrote:

kc.wong....@gmail.com wrote:

4 - Seek out people who know about the system
5 - Get them to setup the development environment for you, while you
stay close and learn how to do all that yourself.
6 - Take a deep breath and get ready to work hard.
7 - It would help if you have some idea about what kind of ...
application is that. ... Also don't give up any opportunities to learn more about the custom
layer. ;)

8. If you turn out to be good at fixing up undocumented legacy code, be
prepared to do it throughout your career. It's a messy job, but you will
always have work and you will be a hero. Once they know you can cook, they
never let you out of the kitchen.

--
Lew


I am actually pretty good at it. I have done it for C as well. It
seems to be a knack for me.


One approach I've found helpful in Java is to put as much as possible of
what I find out into Javadoc comments, regardless of accessibility of
the element, and run javadoc -private. That way, I get a cross-linked
HTML representation of what I know so far.

Patricia

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