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Get better at Googling

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Re: Get better at Googling

#151

Post by bordercases »

madacol wrote: post #149
mywittyname wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A developer who is new to a technology absolutely needs to read the documents. No matter how good or bad, it's important because it probably tells you a lot of stuff you wouldn't learn on your own (or that someone else will teach you wrong). I do a lot of GCP work anymore, and the amount of devs who make service authentication way more complicated than it needs to be is really freaking high. It's clear that the peopl…

Cases where docs are not enough: - Beginners do not understand doc's jargon, or they need to learn too much stuffs to understand it that they'd rather quit. So they end up relying on third party sources/implementations - No English knowledge and no translations

- Tough luck - this is actually a trap for beginning learners so although there is wisdom in learning enough to get the job done, if they rather quit than progress in their knowledge, and the knowledge is foundational for much of their work, they are setting themselves up for long-term failure.

- Fair point, English is still a lingua franca so over time this issue nils out.

Re: Get better at Googling

#152

Post by pjmlp »

lostcolony wrote: post #110
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…

"Just read the docs" depends on how good the docs are, and how discoverable they are. For instance, searching for "Java read a file", I find a bunch of examples. And they mostly are good enough, call out when they aren't, and provide useful links. Meanwhile, navigating Oracle's website is a nightmare. https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/essential/io/file.ht... exists, and is actually pretty helpful, but the only…

Ever heard of an high technology with durable storage longer than most digital mediums called books?

Re: Get better at Googling

#153

Post by pjmlp »

madacol wrote: post #149
mywittyname wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A developer who is new to a technology absolutely needs to read the documents. No matter how good or bad, it's important because it probably tells you a lot of stuff you wouldn't learn on your own (or that someone else will teach you wrong). I do a lot of GCP work anymore, and the amount of devs who make service authentication way more complicated than it needs to be is really freaking high. It's clear that the peopl…

Cases where docs are not enough: - Beginners do not understand doc's jargon, or they need to learn too much stuffs to understand it that they'd rather quit. So they end up relying on third party sources/implementations - No English knowledge and no translations

Lacking ability to read books.

Re: Get better at Googling

#154

Post by domano »

darylteo wrote: post #45
domano wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :)

I don't use slack a lot so this was new to me. Wow, kinda defeats the whole selling point.

Re: Get better at Googling

#155

Post by seph-reed »

"Googling" is a subset of "querying" or "searching"

I know I'm being pedantic, but it's just free advertisement when we use a name brand to describe something instead of a brand-neutral word.

Re: Get better at Googling

#156

Post by ksec »

tiagod wrote: post #135
ksec wrote: post #61

>AND operator will return only results related to both terms: html AND css This is new to me. So what is the difference between searching html css and html AND css ?

I just tried it. Searching html AND css shows pages with the words together (like "html & css" and "html, css, ...")

Would that be the same as "HTML CSS"?

Re: Get better at Googling

#157

Post by spike021 »

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…

As with anything, everyone has their own style of learning.

Yes, a large portion of developers just copy/paste from SO. However, many people also use the results of what they find on Google to learn concepts that the actual docs for just aren't that good.

Re: Get better at Googling

#158

Post by subjectsigma »

Somewhat of a hot take, but - I think using a search engine is a basic part of computer literacy and should be taught in schools. The number of times an older person has asked me a question I could just google is crazy.

Probably the funniest anecdote: at my very first internship, an older engineer (50's) walked up to my desk and handed me a sheet of paper with a short description. He requested that I turn it into a SQL query and send him the results via email. I got the data back to him within 20 minutes and he was very impressed. Spoiler alert: I didn't know any SQL, I just copied and pasted something off of Stack Overflow. I think I was 19 years old at the time.

Re: Get better at Googling

#160

Post by OnionBlender »

mlejva wrote: post #118

Given what the post is about, I wanted to share what my friend and I are working on. It’s an app called Devbook [0]. Our goal is to build a search engine for developers. Currently, it allows you to search Stack Overflow and certain documentation. It’s fully controllable using just a keyboard and completely free to use. It works in a way that you don’t have to leave your coding editor. [0] https://usedevbook.com

Why is it an app instead of a website?

How do you make money? Your privacy policy mentions serving ads but your website doesn't show ads in any of the screenshots.

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