5.4. Use the Source

The best way to prepare [to be a programmer] is to write programs, and to study great programs that other people have written. In my case, I went to the garbage cans at the Computer Science Center and fished out listings of their operating system.

—Bill Gates, Programmers at Work

5.4.1. Context

Newcomers to the open source world often find that their questions are answered with the phrase “Use the source, Luke.” This expresses a fundamental truth about software: the code is the ultimate arbiter. The programmer’s intentions are irrelevant if the code disagrees. Only by reading the code can one truly understand a system.