61–70 of 181 posts
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.
After doing a lot of interviewing, particularly when asking the same question over and over again, I've noticed the quality of what an interviewee decides to Google varies greatly and can give a lot of insight that just solving the problem alone can't. I've been amazed by some of the incomprehensible things people Google, even among those with the supposed same credentials, skillsets, and backgrounds. Aside from whet…
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.
Error messages are not messages for the users to diagnose anymore, they are keywords for google, give them a number. I google and if it fails, I'll try to use my brain.
I've been finding Google less useful in the last little while. It taunts me and tells me that I'm sorry Daniel, I've decided to exclude the most important keyword from your query. Domain-specific search tools - e.g. for programming, Dash.app - have become an increased part of my workflow partially because Google simply isn't giving me the results I am looking for.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
May I ask you what other search engines are you referring to?
Personally, I use DDG. Others may use bing, my point was to buck the Kleenex-ation of Google. I don't Google things, or DDG things. I search for things
I not only use Google frequently, I use it to search for things I myself have written in the past. I can't count the number of times I've Googled for a programming question where the answer is found on a Stack Overflow page I've written. If it's a particularly old answer that I've completely forgotten, I've even thought to myself, " Wow this genius sounds just like me! "[1]. [1]: ... as well as " This idiot has no cl…
That and finding a question you've search for, only to find out that question was also posted by you years ago. Bonus for ones with no answers still.
I guess I'm just restating the Einstein quote more verbosely, but it's absolutely true.
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.
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 -…