编程与软件工程gigamonkeys.com
代码不是文学
Code is not Literature
2014 — 2019，它一次次回到首页
黑点是上首页（≥ 50 分）的那次投稿，空心点是没冲上去的投稿，点越大分数越高。
导读
Peter Seibel（gigamonkeys 博主）在《Code is not Literature》中提出：代码不像小说那样适合“通读”，程序员很少会纯粹为了消遣去读代码；读代码更像做研究，需要带着问题、反复钻研才能理解。文章探讨了“读代码”这件事的真实形态，以及它与文学阅读的本质差异。
为什么经久不衰：它挑战了“代码应像文学作品一样被阅读”的流行说法，给出了更贴近实际的读码方法论，多年来反复登上 HN 首页，至今仍是讨论代码可读性时的经典参照。
HN 评论精选
读代码必须带着问题和目的，否则这个比较本身就不成立
问别人是否“纯粹为了乐趣”读过代码，这个问题本身就问错了——代码不是线性的，没有目的地读会非常吃力。但一旦带着目的（比如想弄懂或修复某个问题），熟练的读者就能快速找到有意义的线索。所以“没人真正读代码”是个稻草人：程序员其实一直在读代码，而且读得越多越擅长。
ef4查看英文原文
Asking people what they've read "just for the heck of it" is the wrong question, because code is not linear, so it's extremely ungainly to read without purpose. But as soon as the skilled code reader has a purpose in mind -- a question to answer -- he or she can rapidly find a meaningful narrative. Put into that context, programmers read code constantly, and the more they read the better they get. So I don't like the "nobody actually reads code" claim. It's a strawman. When I tell people to read code, it's always in the context of "pick something you want to understand or fix, and read with that purpose in mind." Not "the Linux kernel is like Moby Dick, you should really read it all."
很多严肃文学也非线性，代码更接近这类需要研读的文本
作者对“文学”的定义有些狭隘，不过他最终得出的结论是对的：代码需要“研读”而非“浏览”。代码确实不如通俗小说线性，但诗歌、哲学论著、史学分析和数学教材同样需要备着参考资料、反复前后翻阅地细读。
jacobolus查看英文原文
I think the author has a somewhat limited definition of “literature”, though he ultimately comes to the right conclusion that code must be “studied”, not “read”. It’s true, code is typically less linear than a pulp novel, but other types of literature are also involved, with layered meanings, which must be examined carefully, with reference material handy, and lots of flipping back and forth between sections. For instance, poems, philosophical treatises, historical analyses, and math textbooks must all typically be read this way.
读代码的正确类比是学术研究式的反复精读，而非休闲阅读
我很喜欢这篇文章，但不同意它的标题。从作者的经历和 Knuth 的例子看，读代码最好的方式是反复通读，直到能重新实现它或写出完整文档。这更像为文学作品写学术导读：学者会把一本书完整读三遍以上，在关键段落上花数小时、做大量笔记，彻底理解后才能清晰地阐述它——正如彻底消化的软件可以基于阅读中形成的思维模型被重写出来。
bgilroy26查看英文原文
>It was just basically the way you solve some kind of an unknown puzzle—make tables and charts and get a little more information here and make a hypothesis. In general when I’m reading a technical paper, it’s the same challenge. I’m trying to get into the author’s mind, trying to figure out what the concept is. The more you learn to read other people’s stuff, the more able you are to invent your own in the future, it seems to me. I really enjoyed reading this article, but I would argue with its headline. Based on the author's experience and the example from Donald Knuth, it seems like the best way to read code is to go through it multiple times to the point where you could reimplement it or provide complete documentation for it. The literary analog for code reading might be a writing a scholarly reader's companion to a book. You can't write a secondary source for a work of literature by reading it once through like a drugstore thriller or romance. A literary analyst would read the book through completely >3 times and spend hours on certain key passages. They would take extensive notes reconstructing the innerworkings of the characters, the relationships between them, and key themes. Once the work has been comprehensively understood, the scholar can write out in an expository manner what is going on in the piece of literature, the same way that a thoroughly digested piece of software can be rewritten based on the mental model that develops as you read. Obviously software and novels do not map completely one onto the other. I think the key similarity is that they both can be created with sufficient complexity to require taking multiple passes and following along with the author, building something similar yourself in order to truly understand them.
读代码更像做实验：跑起来、改一改，而不是线性阅读
Seibel 说读代码不像读文学而更像做科学，这个观察非常准确。面对分散在众多封装函数中的一万行代码，我的读法与读散文完全不同：文学可以线性地读，而代码必须追踪多条分支进入不同的逻辑流。我通过实验来学习代码——打开调试器单步执行、观察变量变化，更多时候是克隆 GitHub 上的项目去改、去扩展。我不建议只是打开代码库干读，要主动地折腾它、弄坏它、改进它。
ideonexus查看英文原文
Seibel's observation that reading code is less like literature and more like science is dead on. No matter how readable the code is, when I'm confronted with 10,000 lines of it spread across numerous encapsulated functions, I must tackle it very differently from how I read prose. With a complex literary text, I can just read it in linear fashion with occasional segueing to look up words and concepts, with well-engineered code I must follow numerous cases into different flows of logic. These aren't the same at all. I appreciate that he's trying to dispel the idea that we "read" code as we read for pleasure, I learn from code by experimenting with it. I open up the debugger and step through it, watch the variables change and see where it goes when I execute it. Most of all, I learn by changing that code and trying to build on it. I have enhanced my javascript skills immensely in recent years by cloning various projects on github and trying to expand on them or adopt them to my own purposes. I don't recommend opening up a code base and just reading it, actively engage it, break it, and enhance it.
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