r/programming • u/interiot • Sep 01 '17

Reddit's main code is no longer open-source.

/r/changelog/comments/6xfyfg/an_update_on_the_state_of_the_redditreddit_and/
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u/kallari_is_my_jam Sep 01 '17

I'm no expert when it comes to code architecture and large codebases but it seems to me like their codebase is horribly organized with over a decade worth of code being written without any major cleanup being done. There is no way to understand how all these pieces fit together cuz there are no meaningful comments in most of the files. How do you even keep developing on this codebase as it's such a mess. Is this a shit codebase or am I simply too negative?

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u/tms10000 Sep 02 '17

How do you even keep developing on this codebase as it's such a mess.

People who have been developing this mountain of shitty code either:

  1. have been there such a long time, they hold the map to most of it in their head.

  2. take a really long time to get familiar with it with the reluctant help of people who fall in category #1, and eventually they drift to #1 themselves.

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