1. Why Work on Existing Code? Rationale #8

2. In most courses, you write new programs
You start with a language, a framework, and/or an IDE.
The point is to learn programming techniques, not someone else’s code.

3. But that’s not how the world works
On the job, you are always working with someone else’s code.
Rarely do you start a project from scratch.

4. “I hire students who have no idea …
… of what happens in real software.” —Jesper Richter-Reichelm
Head of Engineering, Wooga
Mobile game developer, Berlin
Supervises development of software that is used by millions of gamers. He came up to me at my poster at SPLASH 2011, on using open source in class, and said, This is exactly the right approach.

5. What’s different about old code
You need to read code.
You see good & bad …
You learn to search a repo.
You learn to refactor.
You gain experience merging and using other Git features.
You work with real clients, and try to meet their needs.