IN DEFENSE OF NOT UNDERSTANDING YOUR CODEBASE

Summary from the TLDR newsletter

People who work on small codebases with low-turnover teams use different methods, practices, and cultures than people who work on large codebases with high-turnover teams. The first group, which says you need to understand the codebase completely, otherwise you can't do good work, is over-represented in online discussions about software engineering. There's nothing wrong with being in a state of partial understanding in many software engineering environments. In large systems, a partial understanding is the best you can do.