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Get better at Googling

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Re: Get better at Googling

#91

Post by lanstin »

Zenst wrote: post #79

I'll take this further - being able to frame and define a question well enough to get the right answer is a key skill in many walks of life.

A lot of it comes down to learn vocabulary quickly. You get much better Google results when you use the argot of the people that know the answers. Don’t say boilerplate code say design patterns. Don’t say function for terraform say terraform module. If you are searching for Tesla related stuff, use the words that are disproportionately popular with Tesla drivers.

I also notice Google is great for searches on stuff they care about. R Lang, go Lang Python, fantastic. It as much with things they don’t care about.

Re: Get better at Googling

#92

Post by net_greybeard »

Google is okay for research on how other people have achieved something. But generally these days I am of the opinion it just teaches you bad habits.

I really wish people would just read the docs instead of just googling. I am working on a large typescript solution and almost every error in the application is due to the original developers not reading the docs and instead just googling stuff from stack overflow.

Also I am against the promotion of google generally. The search engine isn't that much better than Duck Duck Go anymore (especially for dev stuff). Also we should all know the problems with Google's defacto monopoly on search.

Re: Get better at Googling

#93

Post by intergalplan »

mmcgaha wrote: post #80
anonymousiam wrote: post #78

Back before Google, developers actually had to know what they were doing. Most kept textbooks on their bookshelves and cheat-sheets in their notebooks. I've done a lot of work in air-gapped secure facilities where no Internet is available. Whenever we get a new-hire, they must adapt to not having Google as an instant resource. About half of them cannot cope, and they move on within a few months. The half that stay ac…

Before google vendors supplied printed documentation.

Also, more of your software was likely to be from a vendor, not FOSS you paid $0 for. That means phone or even in-person support, in addition to a real manual, for stuff like your IDE, OS, and compiler.

I dunno about everyone else, but a lot of my Googling that couldn't be replaced by a simple reference manual for the language(s) I'm using is environment bullshit. It's a result of using a giant, complex, mostly-free build & deployment toolchain held together by duct tape. It's because in a given day I might interact with dozens of programs, services, config tools, and daemons, all in a constant state of flux, and for many of which I have no paid support channel. A good percentage of my Googling is just confirming or disconfirming that the thing I'm using is actually broken (per se or in its interaction, at version X, with version Y of some other thing) in some way that it appears to be broken. This kind of stuff is only documented in bug trackers and forum (Stackoverflow) posts.

If you're developing mainframe software in 1985, or a Turbo Pascal desktop program in 1995, that's a whole different story. Slower-moving, fewer pieces, and you've got someone to call (because you're paying them, or you already paid them and they want to keep your future business) for damn near every piece of hardware or software you use every day.

Re: Get better at Googling

#94

Post by lanstin »

TrackerFF wrote: post #38

To 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…

One of the things to teach new people is when to try an experiment and when to Google. You need something (error msg whatever) specific enough to Google.

Re: Get better at Googling

#95

Post by jansan »

I always use google to search Stackoverflow, because Stackoverflow's search functionality sucks. Just add "site:stackoverflow.com" to your search.

Example: "javascript split keep delimiters site:stackoverflow.com"

Re: Get better at Googling

#96

Post by lanstin »

tonyarkles wrote: post #32
lhnz wrote: post #25

Long-term, more important than Googling, is building a mental picture of 'who can be trusted to give solid advice or write great code'. Nowadays, I don't hit StackOverflow, but go to GitHub to look at what the best Software Engineers I know did to solve a problem. For each topic, there is somebody that comes to mind that I think is better than everybody else, and I look to them for direction.

The GitHub Code Search feature is really useful. If I run into a weird problem that's somewhat outside "mainstream" programming (e.g. 2D Line Arrangements with CGAL), I'll often use Code Search to try to find repos that are using the API I'm using to see how they used it.

Is that really better or faster than adding GitHub to your Google search terms? (Real question)

Re: Get better at Googling

#97

Post by Graffur »

yepthatsreality wrote: post #90

This is only true really for younger developers who haven’t understood the value of RTFM for software. Web search is less valuable to me as I get older due to experience. It is more valuable to those that don’t have experience and want a playground to say: “if I do this, how can I do it, who else has done it?” A good example is if I ask a developer to write a MITM proxy server. You can search all day how to write one…

Disagree completely. So much documentation is written poorly and will lead to confused implementations.

Re: Get better at Googling

#98

Post by intergalplan »

Flex247A wrote: post #11
kkoncevicius wrote: post #7

This is more useful than I thought it was going to be. Specially the "-" for exclusion is new to me, and I can recollect a few times where that would have been handy to know.

Especially excluding Pinterest results while searching for images ;)

Is there a animated gif search anywhere that excludes results that don't actually give you a damn gif when you follow the link? Giphy and friends have made it impossible to find actual gifs.

Re: Get better at Googling

#99

Post by fireattack »

If date info is critical in your search, I suggest to use the Tools->Custom range instead of `before:`/`after:`.

They are almost identical but if you use Tools one, it shows the date of each search results directly on listing, which is very helpful.

Re: Get better at Googling

#100

Post by secondcoming »

net_greybeard wrote: post #92

Google is okay for research on how other people have achieved something. But generally these days I am of the opinion it just teaches you bad habits. I really wish people would just read the docs instead of just googling. I am working on a large typescript solution and almost every error in the application is due to the original developers not reading the docs and instead just googling stuff from stack overflow. Also…

Indeed, the older SO gets the less helpful it becomes. I'm not sure what they can do about it.
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