Software development HELP!! How do I get involved in a very large software development project?

Question

I have been involved in software development projects on the order of 30,000 lines of code or so in the past. However, the project I am newly involved in is tens of millions of lines of code in C++.

The group I am in is responsible for a large section of the code, and I have no idea how to get started. I feel overwhelmed in trying to get involved in a project this large, or how to make changes and bug fixes to code when I don't even know what it does. HELP!!!! What does a developer do to get involved in this??? I know that there is no way I am going to know every class and function of 10 million lines of code, so how do I edit code when I don't know everything it does or affects?

My background is applied mathematics, and most of my experience is in prototyping in either python and Matlab, and writing C++ for occasionally computationally intensive algorithms I call from Matlab or Python.

Answer 1

1. Communicate. Your fellow group members will need to know what you're thinking about doing, and may know a particular portion of code better than you do. Make it a policy to consult each other prior to making changes.



2. Document. This should have been done before, theoretically. Comments will help you and others understand what code goes where, what operations are conducted by which modules/classes/objects. You need in-line comments and probably some collection of separate documentation, flow charts, class diagrams, and whatnot for easy reference. Get whatever you can from people who have worked on this project before.



Best of luck!

Answer 2

Traditional software development only fail because the developer chose them for the wrong situation. For example a modern methodology needs to be applied in case the developer is building a software for a client who wants latest technologies on his software thus if a new technology such as HTML6 arrives while the developer was building an html 5 website , he can adapt the website according to the new technology. Now if the client want a simple website on html5 and he knows all the requirements then a predictive method like the waterfall model can be used.

Answer 3

When dealing with super large projects, if you try to fully understand every line of code you'll drive yourself insane. Especially in a situation like this where it is a group coding effort.



When you go to fix a bug, concern yourself only with things related to that bug. If the bug is in class A and class A has nothing at all to do with class B, C, or D then don't worry about those classes at this time. As you fix more and more problems, you'll find you begin to get a better understanding of the overall functions of the code.

Answer 4

Start scanning through the code and make notes / comments starting from line1

Don't think theres any magic spell to transfer information to your mind



Hope they are paying you enough for this