Reading Code Effectively: An Overlooked Developer Skill • Marit van Dijk & Hannes Lowette

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This interview was recorded for GOTO Unscripted. https://gotopia.tech Read the full transcription of this interview here (https://gotopia.tech/articles/366) Marit van Dijk - Developer Advocate at JetBrains, Java Champion & Open Source Contributor Hannes Lowette - Principal Consultant at Axxes, Monolith Advocate, Speaker & Whiskey Lover RESOURCES Marit https://bsky.app/profile/maritvandijk.bsky.social https://linkedin.com/in/maritvandijk https://github.com/mlvandijk https://medium.com/@mlvandijk https://maritvandijk.com Hannes https://bsky.app/profile/hanneslowette.net https://twitter.com/hannes_lowette https://github.com/Belenar https://linkedin.com/in/hanneslowette Links https://www.felienne.com https://codereading.club https://github.com/neontribe/code-reading-club DESCRIPTION Reading code is a critical yet often underappreciated skill in software development. Marit van Dijk & Hannes Lowette highlight that while developers are trained to write code, they spend most of their time understanding existing codebases—often with incomplete documentation and evolving complexity. They discuss research-backed strategies, such as structured code reading exercises, participation in communities like the Code Reading Club, and leveraging modern IDE tools to navigate and comprehend unfamiliar code. The conversation underscores the importance of empathy in code reviews, writing clear commit messages, and using tests as documentation to improve collaboration and maintainability. By

Published 2025-08-12 · Watch on YouTube ↗
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