most YSWS events hand you a blank file. this one hands you someone else's codebase, and asks you to actually understand it before you write a single line of your own.
dig through an OSS repo. write up what you find — the clever parts, the messy parts, the parts you'd have done differently. then build something of your own with what you learned.
scroll to descend through the strata — or just look, the layers hold still either way
themed detours if you want more direction than "go read some code"
Dig into how a real compiler or interpreter turns text into execution. Tiny languages count.
Crack open how a database stores, indexes, and queries data under the hood.
Trace a networking protocol implementation — HTTP, WebSockets, or something weirder.
Excavate a game engine or renderer. Find out where the frames actually come from.
Go low. OS kernels, bootloaders, anything that runs before "hello world" makes sense.
Small, readable, does exactly one thing. Good first dig.
In-memory data store. Clean C, small enough to actually finish reading a module.
A modern reverse proxy. Great if you've fought with nginx configs before.
The database everyone uses and almost nobody has read the source of.
A whole language runtime, sized for a microcontroller. Surprisingly readable.
The classic. Decades of write-ups exist already — see if you can add something new.
A real walkthrough of the code you read — example snippets, architecture choices you noticed, places you think it's inefficient or clever. Not a summary of the README.
Use Lapse for both the exploring/reading phase and the writing phase. Screenshot or link your session when you submit.
Something that visibly uses what you learned from the repo you studied — a feature, a pattern, or an approach carried over. It doesn't need to be huge, but it needs to connect back to your write-up.
No — they're there if you want a themed direction. Any OSS codebase you're genuinely curious about works.
Then honestly, we don't know what will convince you. RSVP anyway and find out.
pick a repo. read it like it's ancient. build something new.
RSVP for #reverse-ysws →