that's basically how i look up non-existent terraform documentation "intext:google_pubsub_topic (site:github.com OR site:gist.github.com)"
Get better at Googling
41–50 of 297 posts
Re: Get better at Googling
#42Google used to be better, I feel. Nowadays when you add a particular word to make the search specific (otherwise it's too general), Google decides for you, there aren't many results with that keyword, so it excludes the word and gives you a list of irrelevant things. Yeah I know to put the words I want in quotes, but why doesn't it do that by default?
Google works much better when you use the information they know about you.
At the office, I get much better work related searches than at home. This has the benefit of profiling my coworkers and not just me, and the searches/ sites visited are generally work related.
Edit: I don't like Google's intrusiveness either. I do not use it much at home. The searches are better when you teach it with better data. Searching in a a place that others have taught it with similar good results (work) will yield better results than if it was learned at places searching for terms that are similar but in different fields.
Re: Get better at Googling
#43What's often overlooked and omitted from this sort of guide is a person's ability to identify the trustworthiness and usefulness of a website that shows up in search results. It's not enough to juggle operands and search hacks. You also need to know which result to click. Another commenter suggested just searching for your error message. Try searching for "cannot read property of undefined" and scroll through the res…
For me those google hacks seem a bit of micro optimization. I use some and there are helpful, but more importantly are things like what sources are trustworthy, how to read error messages and stacktraces, being able to formulate your problem, etc.
Re: Get better at Googling
#44To abstract it a bit more - the core skill is being able to learn search engine syntax and search operators. Much in the same way that learning regex can be incredibly rewarding. I've (unfortunately) met senior managers that equate googling with incompetence, because they've assumed that coders who rely too much on google (or other search engines) simply can't or don't want to learn languages enough to do stuff by me…
> because they've assumed that coders who rely too much on google (or other search engines) simply can't or don't want to learn languages enough to do stuff by memory.
How do these people expect developers to learn if not by searching for knowledge? There's a big difference between searching for information and blindly copy-pasting solutions from Stack Overflow.
Re: Get better at Googling
#45If you work in a large organisation and use Slack, I think that Slack search is overlooked by people. Most forget that it's even there, but I've found it has saved me a lot of time for getting answers to any organisation specific issues that I cannot google. "query in:#channel" and "query from:@person" are very useful.
Funny how this is overlooked while slack stands for "Searchable log of all conversation and knowledge"
Cause you now have to pay for that luxury... otherwise you only get 3 days worth of history :)
Re: Get better at Googling
#46I used to be a pro at using Alta Vista. Google was so much better, enabling me to get much better results without the tricks that I never mastered it to the same extent.
Re: Get better at Googling
#47Google used to be better, I feel. Nowadays when you add a particular word to make the search specific (otherwise it's too general), Google decides for you, there aren't many results with that keyword, so it excludes the word and gives you a list of irrelevant things. Yeah I know to put the words I want in quotes, but why doesn't it do that by default?
Lately I've actually been getting better results and I have complained about search quality for over a decade: first time I wrote about it must have been around 2008 I think.
A time or two I have even seen it admit that no results matched my query (for those who wonder: this is a good thing! Knowning there are no known results is a valid and useful result in its own right!)
It is still not consistent but now it is at least not consistently annoying.
Sadly this means it is now marginally better than DuckDuckGo.com who more or less consistently thinks it knows better than me if I search for something unusual.
I'll still use DDG first and only fall back to Google.
Re: Get better at Googling
#48Google used to be better, I feel. Nowadays when you add a particular word to make the search specific (otherwise it's too general), Google decides for you, there aren't many results with that keyword, so it excludes the word and gives you a list of irrelevant things. Yeah I know to put the words I want in quotes, but why doesn't it do that by default?
> Yeah I know to put the words I want in quotes
That also doesn't work reliably anymore. Somewhere along the line Google changed it from "exact words" to "exact words and synonyms", with its definition of a synonym being pretty dumb.
Search for something obscure to do with "nginx" and Google shows you results for apache2, even bolding apache2 to indicate a match.
Using DDG's !bangs is far superior.
Re: Get better at Googling
#49Two more tips added to the article. `before` and `after` operators.
If you know any other tips & tricks, send me a DM on twitter @denicmarko. DMs open.
Re: Get better at Googling
#50Agreed! By the way, with SearchMage WebExtension you can enhance google and other search engines so that you get useful features like easier navigation, easier filtering, search profiles, removal of spam domains, optional infinite scroll etc. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/searchmage/oldjnha... https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/searchmage-search-e...
Is this yours? Btw, what tip did you like the most?