Re: OT comprehending large application (was What, in detail, the GDK do)

[jcupitt gmail com]

Hi Patrick,

2009/12/29 Patrick <spell_gooder_now spellingbeewinnars org>:
> Does any one person actually understand 18K pages of this code or is it just
> a case of sticking to a small section? Could any pros out there explain how
> you tackle this monumental task?

People vary in how much code they can hold in their head in any
detail, but I doubt if anyone could manage 60MB of source. A lot of
software design is about how to structure a large project so that you
only need to understand a smallish bit at any one time. The general
principle is always "divide and conquer".

For GTK, you need to understand GObject (the object model) and
GtkWidget (the GTK base class) and once you have that down pat, you
can write your own widget subclasses. It's not so much code to
understand.

John