Breaking things apart and reassemble them

As a software developer in a big company, my job is to develop a platform with hundreds of people. So 99.9% of the code is not written by me. It took me a while to understand just how one part of the system works. In order to be a efficient software engineer, the more you know about your code the better and happier you will be when you are working. So I thought to myself what is the best way to learn a system?

Recently I watched a video about James May disassembled a motorcycle and assembled it back again. I was impressed. How can someone able to know so much about the components of a motorcycle to do that? I debated in my mind, maybe it wasn’t that hard after all. The parts are less than a hundred. Maybe the first time it will be hard but a few tries it will be easy.

I wonder after that why can’t we do that in software? Sure the parts are much much more. Maybe in millions. However the upside is that, you will have to break anything. Most of the time you actually realise the reason why the author did things in a certain manner.

So I will start start experimenting breaking things and reassemble them this year.