Reading what someone else wrote.
THE STRONGEST CODING USE
Explaining code is a language task, and it is genuinely reliable.
HOW TO ASK
"Explain what this code does, for someone who knows [language] but not this codebase."
FOR UNFAMILIAR CODE
"Walk through this line by line. What is it actually doing, and why might it have been written this way?"
FOR LEGACY CODE
"What does this do, what would break if I changed it, and what is it probably protecting against?"
That last part is useful. Odd-looking code frequently guards against something.
FOR ERROR MESSAGES
Paste the error and the relevant code.
"What does this error mean, and what are the likely causes?"
FOR LEARNING
Ask follow-up questions about what you did not understand.
WHAT TO VERIFY
Claims about how a library or framework behaves, against its documentation.
Version-specific behaviour changes and the model may describe an older version.
