The web is recursive. You can only make the web without the web.
Can you make a basic web app without Googling? I can’t
21–30 of 332 posts
Re: Can you make a basic web app without Googling? I can’t
#22Yes. I'm a mobile and web developer of 15+ years and I often will just hit File->New in Dreamweaver and proceed to create the JS, CSS, PHP; etc, on its own while prototyping quite often without the need to use anything but my own head.
Granted, that knowledge came from, originally, reading a ton of books, which; as the Internet can be much, much more up-to-date with ever-changing APIs and technologies, I am happy to have as a replacement to heavy and quickly out-of-date books - and also came from 15 or so years of practice.
YMMV.
Re: Can you make a basic web app without Googling? I can’t
#23I think one of the questions beneath the question is how much would you be able to justify paying each month for a subscription-only Google? How about Internet access?
Re: Can you make a basic web app without Googling? I can’t
#24Something that has dramatically reduced my reliance on outside resources is an editor that can lookup symbol definitions. I’m using Django and I used to use Sublime Text without any plugins which meant (at the time) it couldn’t automatically show me the definition of a function or object from a library, forcing me to search around for its documentation. Switching to PyCharm/IntelliJ meant I could now just Command-Cli…
I'd argue that's just having Google-lite built into your IDE.
Personally I think that focusing on how you solve the problem loses sight of the fact that the only important thing is that you can accomplish the mission. If you can't build a basic web app on your own, but you can while salsa dancing w/ a mountain gorilla, I'll pay for your subscription to Spotify so you can stream Havana Kings while tearing up the dance floor w/ a Silverback (must provide own gorilla).
Re: Can you make a basic web app without Googling? I can’t
#25Yes I can, but I won't. Because I'm not insane.
I know for a lot of people coding is all about fun and lifestyle, but at some point it becomes a job and you just need to get shit done without being fancy, cool, hardcore, eXtreme, 1337, agile, lean, mean, whatever.
Or maybe I'm just becoming grumpy and old.
Re: Can you make a basic web app without Googling? I can’t
#26I used to program with 6 thick reference books around me. Has memorizing SDKs, APIs, libraries ever been a thing? Or is this just the daily "everything is bad nowadays" post?
Every interview I’ve done required me to have everything memorized, so it seems this is very much a thing.
Re: Can you make a basic web app without Googling? I can’t
#27Does it actually matter if I can? Is using reference material a bad thing? Edit: I know the article touches on that idea briefly but my argument would be "of course it doesn't matter". Sure, I could develop slightly faster with a more encyclopedic memory but I really doubt it would make an observable difference in the long-term. Most of my time isn't spent referencing libraries or syntax but instead I spend most of m…
Let's say Elon starts that colony on Mars and you think "Ima move there and write code for a living." You might have the internet, but its 15 minutes each direction. Nothing interactive works, and while they brought copies of Wikipedia, stack overflow didnt package so easily. Or more simply, can you write a web app without internet access?
> stack overflow didnt package so easily
You just need some copy of something like: the way back machine, google cache or archive.is and then do asynchronous mirroring and you are not so far behind.
Zoom meetings might be a problem though.
Re: Can you make a basic web app without Googling? I can’t
#28Does it actually matter if I can? Is using reference material a bad thing? Edit: I know the article touches on that idea briefly but my argument would be "of course it doesn't matter". Sure, I could develop slightly faster with a more encyclopedic memory but I really doubt it would make an observable difference in the long-term. Most of my time isn't spent referencing libraries or syntax but instead I spend most of m…
Let's say Elon starts that colony on Mars and you think "Ima move there and write code for a living." You might have the internet, but its 15 minutes each direction. Nothing interactive works, and while they brought copies of Wikipedia, stack overflow didnt package so easily. Or more simply, can you write a web app without internet access?
That would be a colony on The Sun.
Re: Can you make a basic web app without Googling? I can’t
#29Does it actually matter if I can? Is using reference material a bad thing? Edit: I know the article touches on that idea briefly but my argument would be "of course it doesn't matter". Sure, I could develop slightly faster with a more encyclopedic memory but I really doubt it would make an observable difference in the long-term. Most of my time isn't spent referencing libraries or syntax but instead I spend most of m…
I mostly agree, but I think there are situations where it does make a difference.
I had a position working on a pretty complicated 3d application in Angular. At times, it felt like I was fighting a war on two fronts, one dealing with Angular complexities and the other dealing with domain complexities. A better understanding of Angular in general would have greatly increased my productivity.
Now, whether or not an increase in team productivity would have really mattered is hard to gauge.
Re: Can you make a basic web app without Googling? I can’t
#30I can, but it will be basic! I might have to use a JSON file for the backend because I probably can't remember any database libs well enough to use without documentation. However, lots of programming is much closer to plumming than to.. programming.. any time you're using a lib or api, you're just looking up what kind of fittings that comes with and what length of pipe to attach to it.. So don't worry about not being…
> use without documentation
Of course people’s projects can be unique, and my work may not be representative of the readers work, but I guess this raises the question: what does “using Google” mean? I frequently use “lots of things” on my computer: man pages, other installed documentation, will browse source code of libraries I’m using, or indeed my own previous work. I can do this if, say, I have no Internet connection, but that doesn’t mean I’ve got a fully-formed bug-free implementation of my goal floating around in my photographic memory.