On Sun, Apr 19, 2015 at 06:57:49PM -0700, r00nk@simplecpu.com wrote:
The problem a lot of newbies are having is in 'separating the trunk from the leaves.' So my question is this: Experienced kernel developers, how do _you_ read source code? How do you separate the trunk from the leaves? What do you do when you read code you're not familiar with? How do you learn? What's your algorithm?
I print out the source code, using a huge font as to take up lots of space, bind it all together, and relax in a bathtub full of warm bubbles and drink wine while reading the code and scribbling comments in the margins with a colored soap shard. After falling asleep due to the wine and warm bath, wake up in a few hours freezing cold, surrounded by soggy pieces of paper with all of the ink washed off. But my brain has absorbed it all and I can then resume coding from where I left off. </sarcasm> I use vgrep[1], that's it, no ctags needed. Reality isn't romantic, there is no magic solution to hard tasks. greg k-h [1] https://github.com/vrothberg/vgrep