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Get better at Googling

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Re: Get better at Googling

#181

Post by discreteevent »

tyingq wrote: post #18

The article is missing several operators that are useful. Like inurl:, intitle:, allintitle:, etc. The "AROUND" proximity search is neat as well, especially for words with dual meaning. like: bootstrap AROUND(6) cpu Finds "bootstrap" within 6 words of "cpu", which culls out most (not all) of the unwanted results about the bootstrap js library. This article seems to cover most of the ones I'm aware of: https://ahrefs.…

This used to be in Altavista but I think it was NEAR. It was even more useful then when the default algorithms weren't great.

Re: Get better at Googling

#182

Post by tyingq »

orf wrote: post #174
tyingq wrote: post #18

The article is missing several operators that are useful. Like inurl:, intitle:, allintitle:, etc. The "AROUND" proximity search is neat as well, especially for words with dual meaning. like: bootstrap AROUND(6) cpu Finds "bootstrap" within 6 words of "cpu", which culls out most (not all) of the unwanted results about the bootstrap js library. This article seems to cover most of the ones I'm aware of: https://ahrefs.…

The first two results for "bootstrap AROUND(6) cpu" are about bootstrap though. "bootstrap cpu" gives far higher quality results.

Yes, it's a difficult term. Even "bootstrap compiler" returns JS library results. I'm not claiming my example was the best one for demonstrating AROUND(N).

Re: Get better at Googling

#183

Post by enricozb »

I was on a 6+ hr plane ride over open water and therefore had no internet. I had my laptop and some work I wanted to complete, and it was an enlightening experience trying to program without internet connectivity.

Reading local docs, perusing man pages, or just trying to deduce stuff alone gives a lot of deep understanding of some of the tools available to you.

Hot take: taking code form online tutorials is faster to get something working but can lead to low understanding & bad code. Trying to learn things alone is a very rewarding way to _supplement_ learning and I recommend people try it sometime.

Re: Get better at Googling

#184

Post by mywittyname »

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

I'd be surprised if the documents for any sufficiently large project did not include a "Getting started" section designed for beginners.

Everyone of your users will start off as a beginner, it behooves project creators to ensure that beginner documentation is great.

Re: Get better at Googling

#185

Post by logicslave »

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…

I came here to say this. After so much experience, I just learn the technology. It saves so much time.

Re: Get better at Googling

#187

Post by deeg »

yepthatsreality wrote: post #105
deeg wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an older developer and I google constantly. I deal with Java, Typescript, Scala, Ruby, Python, and bash on a regular basis and sometimes I forget the syntax or method for an operation. I can usually find it within seconds.

I see older developers do it too. And which sites do you find this information on. Is it in the documentation? Wouldn’t it be quicker to just know what docs will tell you that info each time instead of searching for “Java function signature” or “JS pass-by-value” and going to the same place. You’re welcome to continuously search for stuff if that workflow is useful to you, but it’s not very efficient.

I have hotkeys and chrome/firefox extensions to make it very fast to start and navigate a Google search. I don't have to remember all the different docs; I can use the same key-based workflow for all my searches.

Over time I've gotten a feel for what sites have better answers for different questions. E.g. StackOverflow is great for explicit syntax questions because the answer is targeted to the question, unlike documentation which is trying to explain the whole syntax.

Re: Get better at Googling

#188

Post by justpw »

We've actually been working on an app for a while now to make Googling a lot more productive. It's not publicly available in the Chrome store yet, but you can access the unlisted version here: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/waldo-%E2%80%93-se...

It has some neat features like the ability to search within the full text of your Google results, without ever leaving the page.

Would love feedback from anyone who's interested in this topic!

Re: Get better at Googling

#189

Post by SkyPuncher »

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…

I've often found "read the docs" leaves you with too many options for many libraries. A lot of libraries have community preferences that aren't captured in the docs. If you pick the non-standard implementation, you may paint yourself into a corner with plugins and maintenance - even though the way you choose is completely sufficient.
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