Über das Lesen einer fremden Rails-Anwendung, bevor man sie anfasst.

Every Rails app I inherit looks unfamiliar at first, but the order in which I open files rarely changes. Over enough engagements the same sequence has become a small ritual — and it saves me from making decisions in week two that I’d regret in week four.

The first thing I read is config/routes.rb. Before models, before controllers, before the Gemfile. A routes file is the application’s table of contents: every external surface is there in one place, and you can see what the application claims to do in the time it takes to drink a coffee.

…continues.