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Ask HN: Best codebases to study to learn software design?

107 points pixelworm | 1 comments | 24 Aug 25 05:08 UTC | HN request time: 0.203s | source

I’m working on improving my software design skills, and it was recommended that I study existing well designed codebases. What are some publicly accessible codebases you would consider gold standards for software design?
1. RossBencina ◴[24 Aug 25 07:36 UTC] No.45002156[source]▶
I think there is value in groking entire code bases. It's not just about whether or not they are well designed though. It is an important skill to be able to analyze and see the big picture of how things work together in large systems. For me it often involves drawing diagrams (sometimes UML) to map things out. Being able to view systems in this way is a pre-requisite to intentionally designing your own systems at this level. And yes, once you can work at this level you can learn from good designs, but also see problems with bad ones.

EDIT: and to answer your question, if you're working on something that is "like X but different" then read the source code for X. You could also look at source code for software that you use from day to day: software where you already know what it does. For example, if you're in web, maybe the web framework, or web server, if you write python, maybe a core library that you use, or maybe the python interpreter, or if you use vscode ..., if you use android ..., you get the idea. At the start I would suggest smaller programs, and programs where you already know the domain (e.g. cpython might not be the best place to start if you never implemented an interpreter before, you may spend more time learning about interpreters than the design of this one, still a good thing to learn of course.)