In this chapter, we have explored the tricky topic of other people's code. We've considered how we can deal with legacy code that we inherit; how we can build our understanding of it, how we can debug and make changes without difficult, and how we can confirm our changes with a good testing approach. We've also covered the difficulty of dealing with third-party code, including how to select it and how to interface with it in a risk-averse way via the Adapter pattern. There are plenty of other things that we could have spoken about in this chapter, but hopefully the topics and principles we have been able to explore have given you a sufficient understanding of how to navigate other people's code with an eye toward a clean code base.

In the next chapter, we will cover the topic of communication. It may not appear relevant but communication, both within our workplaces and toward our users, is an absolutely vital skill for the programmer, and without it there is little possibility of clean code. We'll specifically be exploring how to plan and set requirements, how to collaborate and communicate with colleagues, and how to drive change within our projects and workplaces.