This seems like a controversial topic. Some people seem to think that if you don't know something code specific without Googling than you're something like a Duct tape programmer (although I may be stretching the term away from what Joel talks about http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2009/09/23.html). Being a college student it's interesting to see articles like this, that I agree with, and then hearing from my professors "anyone can google you can never be a good _computer scientist_ if that's all you do!"
The best programmers are the quickest to Google
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Re: The best programmers are the quickest to Google
#12True story, but it's not just being the first to do a google search. From personal experience I've also seen that how you use google and what variants of your search terms you can come up with that make the biggest difference in getting to the right answer/method. The problem is: when you get to a certain level of skill, or are working on very obscure problems, or are working with hightech (even yet-to-be-released) s…
So...if you're working on a really obscure problem, I'd consider you a researcher before considering you a programmer. (Or perhaps a programming researching). That skill set is immensely different from the standard programmer's skill set. Google skills are still vitally important, but interpreting the results quickly become the dominating factor when you're doing something no one has done before.
Re: The best programmers are the quickest to Google
#13"The best doctors are the quickest to Google." "The best scientists are the quickest to Google." "The best engineers are the quickest to Google." Are the above statements true? Quite possibly. I would argue that the best in their fields are those writing the answers that are indexed by Google to be found by others. However, usually the best in their fields are also good at using Google. Unfortunately, the worst in th…
My doctor said "I don't know, I have to go look that up".
He's probably going to stay my doctor for a very long time for that one sentence.
Re: The best programmers are the quickest to Google
#14Yes and no. I'm a co-founder of http://devbootcamp.com so I see this every day in the context of people learning to be programmers.
"The best programmers I know understand how to architect and build large projects piece by piece. They can focus on the macro because don’t get hung up in the pieces. They know how to use Google to find solutions fast. DRY."
I agree with the first and second bit and strictly speaking the third. That is, when students first watch me code they're surprised both that I'm looking up this-or-that ActiveRecord method and at the speed with which I do it. They assume expert programmers have a book of magic spells they've memorized, so to see what I haven't in some ways makes it more magical.
What am I doing, then, if not memorizing every last little thing? What makes me a "better" programmer?
The key to becoming a non-beginner are the first two bits, not the third. It's developing that filter experts have which separates relevant information from irrelevant information. Lots of beginners use Google in a backwards sort of way, having been trained to "look for the solution." Google is like the great universal answer key for them.
It can't be about memorization, then. Being an expert is more like having this amazing compression algorithm at your disposal and we can evaluate very quickly whether some piece of information is compatible with that compression algorithm.
It's made worse by the fact that they see experts do it, sometimes. Or worse, that experts tell them, "I use Google all the time, you should, too." But Google is worse than nothing if the beginner finds code, copies it blindly into their project, and shuffles characters around until it does what they want. They are robbing themselves of the opportunity to abstract out common patterns, recognize similar problems in different guises, and generally setting an impossible bar of having to memorize too much.
Lots and lots of students have been trained to see software development as THAT.
Re: The best programmers are the quickest to Google
#15I couldn't help but read this and think about technical interviews that involve the candidate being asked to write code on a whiteboard - no Google, no code linting/hinting/completion etc.
I'm very much in favor of candidates being asked to write some code under more realistic conditions, including finding solutions to parts of the exercise online. Of course, they should then be able to explain to the interviewer(s) why they chose a particular solution and walk the interviewer through the code they borrowed/adapted.
Re: The best programmers are the quickest to Google
#16"The best doctors are the quickest to Google." "The best scientists are the quickest to Google." "The best engineers are the quickest to Google." Are the above statements true? Quite possibly. I would argue that the best in their fields are those writing the answers that are indexed by Google to be found by others. However, usually the best in their fields are also good at using Google. Unfortunately, the worst in th…
My doctor said "I don't know, I have to go look that up". He's probably going to stay my doctor for a very long time for that one sentence.
I don't know, it's almost a little unnerving to think that a doctor would always go completely from memory and never look at any reference material.
Re: The best programmers are the quickest to Google
#17I Google everything right away. I guess this makes me the bestest programmer!
Re: The best programmers are the quickest to Google
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
My doctor said "I don't know, I have to go look that up". He's probably going to stay my doctor for a very long time for that one sentence.
I don't know, it's almost a little unnerving to think that a doctor would always go completely from memory and never look at any reference material.
That's what parent said.
Re: The best programmers are the quickest to Google
#19It depends on what you're working on. If you're working at the cutting edge, you will find that Google often doesn't have the answers you need... simply because they aren't out there.
Re: The best programmers are the quickest to Google
#20Your googling skill plays a big part in problem solving, and most of the time you are required to know what exactly is your problem.
I personally google stuff a lot when building a side project, I dont google for solution for a given problem, this is where your programming skills come in . You need to know what exactly you are looking for to get the correct answer from google. It cant be a blanket statement ("parse data from json"). Most of the time the answer is split across multiple sites and which you put together n solve your problem.