TITLE: Toward a Course on Reading Code
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: April 25, 2013  4:03 PM
DESC: 
-----
BODY:
Yesterday, I tweeted absent-mindedly:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
It would be cool to teach a course called "Reading Code".
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

Reading code has been on mind for a few months now, as I've
watched my students read relatively small pieces of code in
my Programming Languages course and as I've read a couple
of small libraries while reading the exercise bike.  Then I
ran across
<A HREF="http://blog.regehr.org/archives/940">
   John Regehr's short brainstorm</A>
on the topic, and something clicked.  So I tweeted.

Reading code, or learning to do it, must be on the minds of
a lot people, because my tweet elicited quite a few
questions and suggestions.  It is an under-appreciated
skill.  Computer science programs rarely teach students how
to do it, and then usually only implicitly, by hearing a
prof or other students talk about code they've read.

Several readers wanted to know what the course outline would
be.  I don't know.  That's one of the things about Twitter
or even a blog: it is easy to think out loud absent-mindedly
without having much content in mind yet.  It's also easier
to express an interest in teaching a course than to design a
good one.

Right now, I have only a few ideas about how I'd start.
Several readers suggested
<A HREF="http://www.spinellis.gr/codereading/">
   Code Reading</A>
by Spinellis, which is the only textbook I know on then topic.
It may be getting a little old these days, but many of the
core techniques are still sound.

I was especially pleased that someone recommended Richard
Gabriel's idea for
<A HREF="http://www.dreamsongs.com/MFASoftware.html">
   an MFA in Software</A>,
in which reading plays a big role.  I've used some of Dick's
ideas in my courses before.  Ironically, the last time I
mentioned the MFA in Software idea in my blog was in the
context of
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2011-08.html#e2011-08-26T14_29_59.htm">
   a "writing code" course</A>,
at the beginning of a previous iteration of Programming
Languages!

That's particularly funny to me because someone replied to
my tweet about teaching a course called "Reading Code" with: 

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
... followed by a course "Writing Readable Code".
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

Anyone who has tried to grade thirty evolving language
interpreters each week appreciates this under-appreciated
skill.

<A HREF="https://twitter.com/cdemwell">
   Chris Demwell</A>
responded to my initial tweet with direct encouragement:
Write the course, or at least an outline, and post it.  I
begged indulgence for lack of time as the school year ends
and said that maybe I can take a stab this summer.  Chris's
next tweet attempted to pull me into the 2010s:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
1. Write an outline. 2. Post on github. 3. Accept pull requests.
Congrats, you're an editor!
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

The world has indeed changed.  This I will do.  Watch for more
soon.  In the meantime, feel free to
<A HREF="mailto:wallingf@cs.uni.edu">
   e-mail me your suggestions</A>.
(That's an Old School pull request.)
-----