As developers, we spend a lot of time learning to write code, while spending little to no time learning to read code. Meanwhile, we often spend more time reading code than actually writing it. Shouldn’t we be spending at least the same amount of time and effort improving this skill? Deliberate practice can help us get better at reading code. Learning how to better read and understand code, can in turn teach us what makes code readable. This might even help us to write code that is easier to read.
In this talk we will discuss the benefits of deliberately practicing reading code in a code reading club or session without an IDE, as well as common strategies to navigate a new codebase and familiarise ourselves with the code using the IDE.
Links
- The Programmer’s Brain by Felienne Hermans (book)
- Benefits of joining a Code Reading Club (blog)
- Code reading (workshop) – for more links
- Reading Code Like a Pro (video)
- Tips for reading code (blog)
- IntelliJ IDEA: Explore project structure with the Dependency Matrix (blog)
- The Problem of Understanding Code is Solved: AI Assistant to the Rescue (video)
- 7 Ways AI Assistant Can Help You with Version Control (video)
- Top 5 IntelliJ IDEA Navigation Shortcuts (video)
- Reading Code Effectively: An Overlooked Dev. Skill • Marit van Dijk & Hannes Lowette • GOTO 2025 (video)
- Agile Testing Fellow: Code Reading Clubs with Marit van Dijk | Episode #22 (podcast)
- Chat with Josh Long on Coffee + Software (podcast)
- Tips for onboarding to a new codebase or working with legacy code (short)
- Reading other peoples code – Patricia Aas (talk)
- Reading Code Is Harder Than Writing It – Trisha Gee (talk)
- Wired! How your brain learns new programming languages By Simone de Gijt (talk)
Presentations
| Date | Event | Location | Media |
| May 15, 2025 | GeeCON Kraków | Kraków, Poland | speaker page |
| May 7, 2025 | Devoxx UK | London, UK | slides session page speaker page |
| April 10, 2025 | Devoxx Greece | Athens, Greece | CANCELLED due to strike |
| March 13, 2025 | Duke turns 30 | online | video slides |
| Jan 31, 2025 | NDC London | London, UK | video slides speaker page talk page |
| Jan 30, 2025 | London Java Community | London, UK | slides |
| Dec 4, 2024 | Tweakers Developers Summit | Utrecht, the Netherlands | slides talks page |
| Dec 4, 2024 | ING Backend Summit | Amsterdam, the Netherlands | slides |
| Nov 15, 2024 | BuildStuff | Vilnius, Lithuania | video slides |
| Oct 10, 2024 | Devoxx | Antwerp, Belgium | video slides |
| Sept 30 – Oct 3, 2024 | Dev2Next | Lone Tree, USA | slides |
| Sept 10, 2024 | JUG Noord | Leeuwarden, the Netherlands | slides |
| Sept 4-5, 2024 | JavaZone | Oslo, Norway | slides |
| July 9, 2024 | Picnic | online | slides |
| June 27-28, 2024 | KCDC | Kansas City, USA | slides |
| June 13, 2024 | JSpring | Utrecht, the Netherlands | video slides speaker page |
| May 17, 2024 | NewCrafts | Paris, France | video slides speaker page |
| May 14, 2024 | JCON Europe | Cologne, Germany | slides talk page speaker page |
| April 9-11, 2024 | DevNexus | Atlanta, GA – USA | slides talk page speaker page |
| March 27-29, 2024 | Voxxed Days Bucharest | Bucharest, Romania | video slides |
| March 20, 2024 | Utrecht Java User Group | Amersfoort, the Netherlands | slides event page |
| Feb 5-7, 2024 | JFokus | Stockholm, Sweden | video slides talk page |
| Nov 9, 2023 | Øredev | Malmö, Sweden | video slides speaker page |
| Nov 7, 2o23 | FooConf | Helsinki, Finland | slides speakers page |
| Oct 19, 2023 | GeeCon Prague | Prague, Czech Republic | video slides speakers page |
| Oct 3, 2023 | GOTO Copenhagen | Copenhagen, Denmark | video slides speaker page |
| Sept 12, 2023 | Java Forum Nord | Hannover, Germany | slides |
| Aug 31, 2023 | ArnhemJUG | Arnhem, the Netherlands | slides event page |