Legacy code best practice: how to take over an existing project smoothly

Every programmer, I guess, would meet the code from others that you have never contributed to. And one of the ways to distinguish experienced programmers from beginners is to see if they can quickly dive into the legacy code and maintain, develop, and refactor it in the right way.

There is no silver bullet to approach it, I’ve also been caught in the nightmare of not being able to read the code at all. But I have some tips from my experience to guide you to master it step by step. Hope it would be helpful.

1. Ask for documentation or explanation

It’s very lucky if there is some detailed documentation, or if the person who wrote the code is still around. This can save you a lot of time, but of course the best way is that the previous team can help you walk through the whole codebase.

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