Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Experienced Programmers Use Google Frequently

codeahoy.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 181 posts

Re: Experienced Programmers Use Google Frequently

#41

Post by BuckRogers »

jupiter90000 wrote: post #27

For programmers that were coding before good search engines: what did you do when you wanted to look up an error, etc back then? Crack open a tome for the language? Just curious as I can't imagine it was easy.

For the most part you were on your own. I used books myself since I didn't have colleagues back then.

But software was in many ways simpler. The complexity was in squeezing out performance rather than piles of abstraction layers on top of one another. Knowing the hardware was more important and that was gleamed through trial and error.

The internet enabled the complexity that made software development dependent on it.

Re: Experienced Programmers Use Google Frequently

#42

Post by enraged_camel »

curtis wrote: post #6

I often joke that my ability to formulate good Google queries is the single most important part of my software engineering skillset. Except, you know, I'm not really joking.

This times a thousand.

Google is also very good at what I call "meta-guidance." If I search for something and don't find any good results, there's two possibilities: a) I'm not asking the right question, or b) I'm trying to solve the wrong problem.

Re: Experienced Programmers Use Google Frequently

#43

Post by grifter2000 »

jupiter90000 wrote: post #27

For programmers that were coding before good search engines: what did you do when you wanted to look up an error, etc back then? Crack open a tome for the language? Just curious as I can't imagine it was easy.

Honestly? Yeah. I printed a lot of man pages and docs out, kept my references closer at hand than I do now, and made a lot of handwritten notes to help bury peculiarities and API into my swiss cheese brain.

Re: Experienced Programmers Use Google Frequently

#44

Post by rhizome »

ahyperloop4u wrote: post #11
buserror wrote: post #2

Another essential point here is when you get 'fancy' error messages. Google is amazing at finding why (and usually, The Patch) when you fail to compile random packages. I have my own little cross-distro builder[0] and I /rarely/ bother trying to dive into autoconf/make hell before cut+pasting the exact error message into google! That very likely saved my sanity many times over :-) Otherwise I agree with the article -…

This is spot on. Sometimes it's much quicker to just plug the error into Google than to search. Saves a lot of time and work.

Google is a DSL for troubleshooting.

Re: Experienced Programmers Use Google Frequently

#45

Post by [deleted] »

nostrademons wrote: post #21

Ironically, the one time that I did not use Google frequently (as a programmer) was when I was working on Google Search. It's hard to Google the answers for how the search engine works, particularly when they're locked up in the heads of only one or two people. Use it all the time otherwise, for personal projects and startups (really, all of my startup ideas would be complete non-starters if Google didn't exist). Jus…

[deleted]

Re: Experienced Programmers Use Google Frequently

#47

Post by nathanasmith »

HillaryBriss wrote: post #22

Like others here, I depend heavily on Google searches while programming. Sometimes it's useful just to see how Google tries to autocomplete a search phrase I've started to type.

More often than not I will very deliberately type my search phrase one character at a time paying careful attention to all the autocompleted results. Very useful habit to get into as I have solved quite a few problems much faster than had I gone down the rabbit hole of my original query.

Re: Experienced Programmers Use Google Frequently

#49

Post by ahmedbaracat »

stephenr wrote: post #18
markbnj wrote: post #5

Google is certainly a 100% essential tool for programming. I use it constantly, every day, and I am sure basically every single developer does the same. The most essential point in the post, imo, is that on any given project you have to wade through the details of dozens of components and tools. There's only so much room in the average brain.

Google? No. A search engine? I'd say the vast majority of developers use one for some part of their job, yes

May I ask you what other search engines are you referring to?

Re: Experienced Programmers Use Google Frequently

#50

Post by cssensei »

curtis wrote: post #6

I often joke that my ability to formulate good Google queries is the single most important part of my software engineering skillset. Except, you know, I'm not really joking.

Same for me. I also tend to say, that sometimes (especially when in consulting jobs) I feel more like a housecleaner than a software developer.
Post reply on HN