title: How to improve your reading and understanding of code?
body: <p>For the past 5 or so years, I've been working with vastly different projects and systems.  Code  for those projects differed  significantly in terms of quality, style, size. I saw examples of both: clean as well as disgusting 1000 lines functions and if conditions code. </p>
  
  <p>I still don't feel quite competent at reading other people's code, understanding  systems' internals, etc.</p>
  
  <p>I would like to find out what techniques you use to improve your skill at reading and understanding other people's code, how to get up to speed quickly,  what tools, methods, etc commonly employed.</p>
  
  <p>Let me give this answer that many will just gun for it: <strong>you can improve reading code skills <em>by reading code</em></strong></p>
  
  <p>There is a relevant post for improving programming skills that can be useful and goes on par with this post: <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/76364/what-is-the-single-most-effective-thing-you-did-to-improve-your-programming-skill">What is the single most effective thing you did to improve your programming skills?</a></p>