Ask HN: What OSS has the best written (clean) code you have seen?

5 pointsjonalmeida2 comments

With some topics [1] talking about how bad the OpenSSL code is to read, I was wondering what would be an OSS project that is a good contrast to it.

I'm looking for code that you think is enjoyable to read/easy-on-your-eyes that's a major part of open software.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7556407

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I have found the code from the suckless project, to be a great read. When I was working on a toy HTTP server I learned a lot from http://git.suckless.org/quark/

Another code base I enjoy reading is SBCL. When I M-. into functions and it takes me to something defined in SBCL it always is a great read, and I have learned a lot from it.

FreeBSD is a great one as well, if you checkout SRC it is really illuminating to browse around the source. I have learned a lot by seeing the layout of such a large project.

i wish that there wasn't a double standard where open source is expected to be well-documented or elegant (etc). (especially for smaller scale projects that don't have the infrastructure / time)

for OSS projects that are hard(er) to read, the question goes - why hasn't the community helped clean it up / document / etc?

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