Reading SQLite source code is IMO mission impossible. Yet it is a usable piece of quite complex software (it's a full-blown embedded database after all) that can be downloaded, compiled and used from others code and it is constantly updated.How do people manage to write and maintain such extremely complex and hard to read code?
How do people manage to write and maintain extremely complex and hard to read code?
source code;maintenance;readability
There is a big difference between Complex and Complicated. The following link about sums it up. :)http://codebetter.com/blogs/dru.sellers/archive/2009/09/25/complex-vs-complicated.aspxOn a more personal note, I work on a code base of more than 1 million lines of code. I have been in it from line 1 to its current state. The more farmilar you are (read longer you are in the code) the easier it becomes. I can not tell you what every line does, but I can tell you were to start looking for a given task or bug. It just comes naturally. The moral of the story is that like any thing in the programming world it takes time. If you expect to look at SQLite and just know and understand it, you are kidding yourself. It is going to take time to figure out how everything works together. The difference between good code and bad code is how long that process takes.Lastly, some developer do not have the ability to jump into a code base and start figuring it out. Many will feel overwhelmed at sheer size or architecture of the code base. Others will have no problem just jumping into it. It all depends on the developers strengths. 