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Re: reading the C source of Emacs


From: Stefan Monnier <address@hidden>
Subject: Re: reading the C source of Emacs
Date: 12 Jan 2003 15:59:39 -0500
User-agent: Gnus/5.09 (Gnus v5.9.0) Emacs/21.3.50

> Not surprisingly I am pretty lost. What is a good starting point to
> read those sources? Is there any recommended order of reading?

In my experience, the best way to start understanding a (large) piece of
code, is to look at a small part of it that you expect you should be able
to more or less understand, and once you feel like you understand it
somewhat, change it in an apparently innocuous way.

Most likely it will wreak havoc because you actually completely missed
several important aspects of what the code does, but by looking at how it
breaks, you'll get to understand those things you missed.

Having knowledgeable people at hand makes the experience less
painful, of course.


        Stefan


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