On the TechBeacon site there's a new tutorial posted sharing a list of nine ways to master awful code and make it more efficient, easier to maintain and clearer.

You've been given the task of implementing a new feature on an old codebase, but the code looks awful. How can you understand it as quickly as possible? Here are several shortcuts to help learn the important parts of new code without getting lost in the irrelevant details.

Their suggestions range from technical to non-technical and include:

• Ask for help
• Make it easy to reproduce bugs (add version control, build environments)
• Prepare for automated testing
• At first, work on a small task

For each item in the list there's an explanation and links (or screenshots) of other resources to help illustrate their point.