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copied!<p>I had to take over someone else’s code of different degrees of quality on several occasions. Hence the tips:</p> <ul> <li><p>Make effort to take structured notes of any piece of significant information from minute one: names of stakeholders, business rules, code and document locations etc. It is best to dedicate a fresh spiral notebook, so you could tear pages out if you had to.</p></li> <li><p>Make use of one of the better free indexing and desktop search tools available on the market (Google Desktop Search, MS Windows Search will do). Add all document, e-mail, code locations to it.</p></li> <li><p>Before developing anything do document analysis: find everything you can get you hands on electronically on network and printed out docs, make effort of simply reading it. There is amazingly much of useful information even within unfinished drafts.</p></li> <li><p>Mind map the code, architecture etc as you go. </p></li> <li><p>With lesser documented and maintained systems you inevitably will have moments of despair that are likely to push you into procrastination mode. Especially during your first days or week when amount of new information your mind has to digest is overwhelming. At these times it is nice to have someone to remind you (or just do it yourself) to take it easy, concentrate on important things first and revert to making smaller steps in trying to gain understanding instead of trying to leap forward. </p></li> <li><p>Keep taking notes, making diagrams, drawing rich pictures, mind mapping. It really helps to digest the copious amounts of new information, mostly disorganised. </p></li> </ul> <p>Hei, good luck!</p>

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