Yes, I am aware that some individuals find it offensive that their years of meticulous memorization and/or magnificent piles of programming books are beginning to fade in favor of a resource that anybody can use in a matter of seconds, but you shouldn't hold it against those who utilize it.
I hear people searching online for solutions to issues far too frequently, and it makes no sense at all.
First and foremost, it must be acknowledged that everyone requires sources for their references. You will need to conduct some research because you don't know everything. Given that, is the source of the information really important? Does it matter if you learned it from a talking frog that you imagined or whether you researched it in a book, on Google, or both? No.
A correct response is a correct response. What matters is that you comprehend the subject matter, and utilize it to achieve a good programming solution, and the client/your company is satisfied with the outcomes.
Let me create a scenario here, a friend of mine came to me one day saying "I feel stupid having to Google my program together, should I be trying to build my knowledge up and test myself? Should I just rely on Google?".
This was my reply, Yes, this is completely normal. Coding is a highly detailed, highly knowledge-based skill. There are plenty of languages, and each language has its own set of libraries (which have thousands of APIs). On top of this, more complex software is usually most efficiently built using existing tools (e.g. using an ML library with built-in tools rather than building from scratch), which adds yet another layer of things to learn.
All of that's to say, yes, googling all the time is normal. I've been a dev for 2 years now and I still google all of the time/use our company's internal knowledge source.
So googling during coding is actually a skill you should learn also in your development phase ππ.
I hope this post inspire someone
Want to thank me βΊοΈ, buy me a coffee βοΈ here
Top comments (12)
Googling is what actually makes a good developer. If you don't need to google it means you are just repeatedly doing something you already know and you won't learn very much new stuff.
I actually just released a programmer quiz game. That game is meant to be hard. The "beginner level" entry isn't at all things beginners already know out of their head. The aim is instead that beginners should be able to find the answers by googling. Not sure if I did hit the right level of hardness, but I hope it is good enough! :)
I will make time to play π
When I open your link, the tab just becomes unresponsive in an endless redirect loop.
Thanks very much for your bug report Wii :) Could you please share some browser and device info? Would really appreciate that. Here or on LinkedIn/Twitter/Instagram.
Didn't work on vivaldi with cookies blocked, but with cookies enabled it works now. (note that blocking cookies on vivaldi also includes local storage)
Thanks for the investigationπ I'm using cookies to store progress. In Next.js cookies are often very handy, since they are available for server side rendering.
Anyhow, I should fix so the page is at least responsive with cookies blocked and some descriptive information about it :)
It is, as so often, nuanced:
If you've been coding for half a year and need to google new concepts all the time, that's totally understandable.
If you've been coding for a decade and still have to copy the boilerplate of sending an HTTP request via some scripting language, that's also fairly normal.
But there's certainly things people should have memorised at a certain point or just be able to figure it out on their own. If after 5 years of javascript you still have to google how to reverse a string, chances are there's something off.
You have a point π
If you don't "Google it" you're likely a worse developer because of it.
Don't get me wrong you can be a very nice developer without Googling anything, but Googling is a tool that allows you to find previously made errors that have been solved with help. By Googling you're stimulating that it's okay to ask for help and you'll get your answer sooner.
But there is a catch, Googling is only good if you read the (likely) stack overflow post and understand your mistake and their code. Otherwise it's not good to Google as it impairs being able to optimize, fix or explain your code.
Youβre right Mrs. Didier
This made me laugh hahaha.
Iβm glad π