Hi everyone,

I'm a freelancing programmer and not yet old enough to get a CS degree yet. I've set my self the goal to participate in other projects in the open-source environment.
But getting started is one of the parts that are the hardest for me. I'm getting really fast confused when I sit in front of a code-base I haven't written my self trying to understand what they do there. I've already programmed my self and created different kinds of programs. But getting into what they do is the hard thing for me.

Do you have any ideas tipps or tricks how to get into a precreated code-base fast and easy?

Isn't it fun examining another developer's code when there isn't much documentation, if any? Happened to me at my workplace when one of my former coworkers just came in for one minute to quit and walk out. I inherited all of this person's applications, and it was tough as hell to figure out what was going on. There was no easy way to dissect what the hell the code was doing. It gets even harder when the code has global variables that are being used in other code files. All I can say is that if you do this often enough, you'll get slightly more accustomed to dealing with other people's code, but it will never be easy, especially if it's spaghetti code or not documented.

Also, if you can figure out what the application/code needs to do, you can either try rewriting it to your heart's content, or add your own documentation to the code. You just need to make sure that all the business logic remains intact if you do happen to rewrite it.