how do you read code?
psyklic: In my experience, writing a lot of your own code teaches you MUCH more about good design than looking at others'. Most of the design process is actually in the reasoning behind WHY a certain process was employed, which is not easily evident from code alone!But since you asked:(1) Run the code and understand what the software DOES. If a library, write a driver program which tries out most of the functions.(2) Look at the high-level classes (or the major organizational structures, e.g. source files) and figure out the purpose of each (e.g. CLogger -> logs errors to a file or the display)(3a) (the fun way) Come up with a cool, simple feature you'd like to add, or something simple you'd like to change. Do it. Repeat.-OR-(3b) (the boring way) Find the main() function and step through the code with a debugger, stepping over function calls which are self-explanatory. Step into ones you're unsure about.In reality, this all depends on how well the code is written. Understanding some code just isn't worth the price of admission.