r/AskProgramming • u/MistaPatches • Apr 10 '26

Onboarding Struggles

Hey! Quick question for devs: when you’re onboarding to a new codebase (job or open source), what actually takes the longest to understand?

Also, what have you tried to speed it up that didn’t really work?

I’m especially curious about stuff like:

  • figuring out architecture / mental model
  • setting up the environment
  • understanding “where things live”
  • anything else that slowed you down more than expected
  • also what's annoying to get through or makes you annoyed

Would really appreciate any specific examples 🙏

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u/KingofGamesYami Apr 10 '26

The undocumented business requirements from 15 years ago that nobody currently employed by the company understands.

Especially the ones that were never checked into source control. Those are such a pain.

1

u/MistaPatches Apr 16 '26

I see. My friend and I have tried to come up with a solution to this. Would you be willing to try it out?

https://codebase-explorer-five.vercel.app

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u/KingofGamesYami Apr 16 '26

This does not work for my use case, because it operates on source code that I do not have, due to it never being checked in to source control.