[skydhash]

You should always be aware of the business domain of the code. My general pattern is to actually have an idea of what the software does. Then I locate where the general code is. After I ask what modules I'm interested in - most codebases have clearly delimited modules. Then I work from the entry point on that module and look on what it returns. I sometimes look at other part of the code to assert my assumptions, but generally, I stay in one place until I have a good idea of its behavior. Then after I have a good model, I move on to the next one. The goal is to understand each unit enough that I can write a couple of sentences or paragraphs about it - from functions to whole file.