Looking for tips on how to learn as quickly as possible
The project that I am on right now is in the “go-live” stage. This means that we are basically fixing the last remaining bugs in an already implemented system and getting it ready to go into production. The consequence of this is that there seems to be very little time to learn the domain or the implementation.
In order to fix a bug you already need to understand the domain and no pair stays put in the same part of the implementation long enough for a new developer to learn the code. In addition, the client is looking for bugs to be fixed as quickly as possible which results in the experienced developers doing all the work and the new one simply looking over their shoulders and trying to keep up.
I am looking for tips on how to catch up — what is the best way for a new developer to such a project to learn the domain, the implemented code, and the technologies that that code is built upon as quickly as possible.
One thing that’s helped me immensely was to recursively do a Find Usages on whatever I was looking at, until I reached the bottom of the stack. Then I’d make my way back again by (in IntellIJ or Eclipse) ctrl-clicking on whatever seemed important to the task at hand.
Do that a few times and you can already start sprinkling any code with a few notes and TODOs, or even spot opportunities for testing that were previously missed.
Ideally, the person who is reporting the bug knows the domain. In this case, the bug report should give you:
- Some context on what they were doing
- The steps taken to reach the point at which the bug occurs
- The step that causes the bug to occur
- The nature of the bug (eg. unexpected output) and what should have happened (eg. the expected output)
With this information it should be possible to recreate the situation for yourself. With your test copy you can trace through the program path and see if there is anything untoward, and if there is, you can fix it.
This way, you learn the code, the domain and where the bugs are likely to lie in small iterations
Also, you get to know which people write the best bug reports.
Hi, as a person who kept found himself in that situation in last job because of nature of the consulting business, I really appreciated a developer on the team take time to triage the bugs to decide which ones are good for new member to work on. The new member should be the driver during the pair but the bug should be isolated. For example, if it is just a bug about not validating the input fields on the UI, then maybe it is a good one to learn about the web framework the project is using.
Needlessly to say, it is easy to say than get done, which is why I always appreciated it when someone puts in the effort.