Quasar.dev is an offline app, so test, yess I can
Ask HN: Can you program without an Internet connection?
21–28 of 28 posts
Re: Ask HN: Can you program without an Internet connection?
#22Before the internet I had bought/borrowed many books and magazines as reference material. Most of the reference is the internet now - but I still have quite a few relevant books as well as electronic documents so it may be initially a struggle to get back to paper/PDF referencing I could get still get stuff done. Also my previous code is a good reference source.
For some trick I've never done before I'd either try to hack it out or adapt whatever to what skills and resources I have like don't use hamburger menus at all there's more than one way to do navigation. :-)
Re: Ask HN: Can you program without an Internet connection?
#23Used to do so because my only internet access was a cybercafé and when I have enough money to use a 3g modem. I used to have zeal installed, plenty of syntax references manual the occasional mirror of a site. I loved Android studio at that time because you could click on a symbol and got redirected to the definition, so you could learn how it works. I also used to collect open source codes that I review every so often to learn best practice and design patterns.
Re: Ask HN: Can you program without an Internet connection?
#24You got yourself in a mental trap from formed habit. You say you didn't want to "reinvent the wheel", but in reality you didn't want to do the work. You wanted to replace 10 minutes of thinking about the problem and writing the solution with 10 minutes of Googling for the solution and copy/paste. Just stick with it. Before long your router will shit itself, be off all day and you don't even notice. Have essential doc…
Good luck with writing code without being connected nowadays. MSDN from the 90s is all .chm's and you can find anything there. Win32 API, Sockets, DirectX, all with explanations and example codes. Fast, searchable, available locally, lightweight. Everything was there.
As opposed to todays MSDN library that is primarly online. You can export it to pdf document but it's computer generated and you can see a lot of thinking/work didn't go into that process, plain get headers get text and dump it into pdf.
Another one is to download MSDN library/documentation via visual studio, which has some information, but is incomplete and you still bump on some topics that redirect you to the online version. And not nearly content-rich as it's 90s version.
Re: Ask HN: Can you program without an Internet connection?
#25I wrote my first program in 1967 or 1968, so yes I can program without the internet. Programming for a couple of decades before the internet existed got me into the habit of relying on manuals (like IBM 360 Principles of Operation [1]) and books (for example, Daniel McCracken‘s A Guide to Fortran IV Programming [2]). To this day I rely on books more than my colleagues.
Although I can program without the internet, I much prefer having the internet at hand—-programming with the internet is a much better experience. So, my large library isn’t really necessary for the task.
[1] https://books.google.com/books/about/IBM_System_360_Principl...
Re: Ask HN: Can you program without an Internet connection?
#26Well yes, at least that's how we do it in my third world country. You get used to it easily, and there are no distraction when you work.
Re: Ask HN: Can you program without an Internet connection?
#27Depends on what you mean by "without an Internet connection". If you mean that the machine that you use to develop isn't connected to the Internet, then totally. I've been doing that for the past 4 years. If you mean never touching the Internet while programming, even on a different machine, then I'd be a lot less effective. I could probably still do it, but I'd need searchable docs for everything.
Re: Ask HN: Can you program without an Internet connection?
#28I only use whiteboards for coding since that's how it's done in interviews /s
I've often used a whiteboard notebook, specifically the Nu Board. It's great for iterating on a concept and also sharing with others. It also has transparent sheets so you can protect the drawing on the whiteboard portion, or put printed (or other) material underneath to draw over without marking it up directly.
How you want to go about wasting time is your business