[fsloth]

"Read the documentation. I can't stress enough on that."

There are lot's of production codebases with very little or no documentation, though.

"Don't over-engineer stuff. Keep it plain and simple."

This in an excellent advice.

"Pay close attention to the most experienced people and try to understand their thought process and mentally train yourself to be able to think like them"

Yes, this is similar apprenticeship. Just being able to work with talented people is an outstanding thing to have. On the other hand, if you are a junior contributor, but can't find the obvious master programmer around, that is a huge red flag that the organization is filled with mediocrity through and through and it probably would be best to work somewhere else.

If you actually feel you are the most talented programmer, and are confident of your skills, that is an important datapoint. If your organization does not value your skills in couple of years you should definetly move on.

[axegon_]

> There are lot's of production codebases with very little or no documentation, though.

Indeed. But the advise is equally as valid for libraries or frameworks used in a project, which as a junior developer, chances are you have very little experience with. Read those :)

> On the other hand, if you are a junior contributor, but can't find the obvious master programmer around, that is a huge red flag that the organization is filled with mediocrity through and through and it probably would be best to work somewhere else.

Also correct. That said, you can go through the history of the project you are working on and see who's done the heavy lifting, granted they are still around.