Today's topic:
Onboarding into a new codebase
As a new hire / contractor for a freelance project
From JP:
- Reviewing other people's PRs on a new codebase
- Submitting your first PR
- Understanding how data flows through the app
- I've found that the organization of the code and the quality of abstractions makes or breaks this point
- Ramping up complexity of feature stories that you can tackle. How do you get there?
From John:
- First — Understand the domain, talk with team, read books, use competitor software, language in that domain.
- Then — Understand the software
- Read the Docs, all that you can get your hands on
- Review closed issues / tickets, try to understand the language /culture of the team
- Review the tests, this is a good place to start if there is any, especially integration or feature tests that are higher level
- Find the "God" objects if you can.
- Write docs as you go, great way to get it into your head
Onboarding someone else onto a new codebase
From JP
- Hiring contractors for a project
- Onboarding new hires
- Reviewing new hires' pull requests **it's own episode maybe? Code Review?**
- How do you onboard someone else?
- I think domain context is important
From John
- Support the advise given above! It's just the reverse
- First: Domain Context
- Then —
- Provide Docs
- Tests
- Simple first issue
- Pair on the onboarding Dev's first PR VS sink or swim
- Try to demonstrate what tools and process you use in a project
Picks
JP: https://apps.apple.com/de/app/meeter-fast-call-initiation/id1510445899?l=en&mt=12
John:
- Rails View Components
- It's a new pattern in rails to produce reusable front end "Partials" but more abstracted and re-usable.
- This pattern plus stimulus.js is really magic.