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The best programmers are the quickest to Google

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Re: The best programmers are the quickest to Google

#121

Post by groby_b »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #94
jfarmer wrote: post #14

Yes 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…

Let me give a non-programming example. It took me the best part of the weekend to drill twelve holes for curtains - because it is not enough to Google for the answers. Now, if you knock on a wall and it sounds hollow - you just google for hollow wall fixings. Great. I'll go buy some of those. Drill into the wall. And hit brick behind the plaster. Err... Ok they have invented a new type - dry lined Walls. The gap is s…

I cannot upvote you enough - especially on the first point. All the googling in the world is worthless without knowing what to Google for.

The "trick" of expert[^1] programmers is to know the difference, and to slowly expand the base they can build on.

[^1] An expert is merely a person who has learnt from more mistakes. There's nothing magical about it, as much as the cult of the rock star programmer would have us believe otherwise.

Re: The best programmers are the quickest to Google

#122

Post by alainbryden »

Microsoft recruiters are doing their rounds for Seattle, and I was just asked over the phone how I would implement a quick sort. The answer I wanted to give would have been something like this blog post. As a developer I would never waste valuable time trying to roll my own version of an algorithm that's probably available on Wikipedia and optimized for every programming language imaginable. I guess what they were looking for was some buzz words like "divide and conquer" and "big oh n log n time". I understand interviewing community college graduates with no experience like this, but young adults with 6 years of SE behind them? Ridiculous.

Re: The best programmers are the quickest to Google

#123

Post by michaelwww »

pav3l wrote: post #32

>why in the world would you want to spend 2 hours trying to figure it out yourself? I am sure a large portion of HN-ers (myself included) enjoy doing exactly that. I want to spend my day solving problems , not googling shit.

This is fine for your own projects, but not on my time. I would expect you to look for an existing solution before writing something from scratch.

Re: The best programmers are the quickest to Google

#124

Post by jacquesm »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #94
jfarmer wrote: post #14

Yes 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…

Let me give a non-programming example. It took me the best part of the weekend to drill twelve holes for curtains - because it is not enough to Google for the answers. Now, if you knock on a wall and it sounds hollow - you just google for hollow wall fixings. Great. I'll go buy some of those. Drill into the wall. And hit brick behind the plaster. Err... Ok they have invented a new type - dry lined Walls. The gap is s…

> 3. Hire a professional while you go and do revenue generating work.

Nothing wrong with acquiring a new skill. And next time you know how to do it.

Re: The best programmers are the quickest to Google

#125

Post by Bootvis »

nissimk wrote: post #61
Bootvis wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must repeat the doing but not the inventing. I propose the following maxim: Good programmers invent, great programmers copy.

A wise man that I once worked for said "The best code is the code you can steal."

Agreed, but now I think of it there is a level beyond the copying/stealing of code: "The best code is the code you didn't write".

Of course, it is even better to beat a complex program with a small amount of shell-fu.[1]

[1]: http://franklinchen.com/blog/2011/12/08/revisiting-knuth-and...

Re: The best programmers are the quickest to Google

#126

Post by gte910h »

abraininavat wrote: post #51
gte910h wrote: post #13

Earlier 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.

Yeah you're way off here. If my doctor said "I don't look things up" I'd run out the door. A doctor who looks things up is a doctor who cares to get things right.

>Yeah you're way off here.

You read my comment exactly backwards.

Re: The best programmers are the quickest to Google

#127

Post by gte910h »

bluedino wrote: post #109
abraininavat wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah you're way off here. If my doctor said "I don't look things up" I'd run out the door. A doctor who looks things up is a doctor who cares to get things right.

Depends on the situation - a doctor can take his time during say, a cancer diagnosis, but not in the ER. Do you want a doctor who's trying to patch up your innards after a serious accident to look up where your pancreas is located? Inexperience leads to a lot of wasted time searching for things along the way. The more you know in your head, the better.

>Do you want a doctor who's trying to patch up your innards after a serious accident to look up where your pancreas is located

Do I want a surgeon who'd stop look something up and rescrub if that was the best thing to do? YES.

That inexperienced guy is going to get experience at one time, perhaps on me. If he needs to stop, and the stopping is less dangerous than him NOT stopping, I want the stop to occur.

Do I want a fucking moron who can't do basic parts of his job, of COURSE not.

Re: The best programmers are the quickest to Google

#128

Post by gte910h »

lurker14 wrote: post #18
nightski wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Two commenters read my comment backwards. Wonder why.

Re: The best programmers are the quickest to Google

#129

Post by jfarmer »

kbenson wrote: post #93
mobweb wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they 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." It's not about memorization, then, it's about this compression algorithm we call "being an expert." I think this goes pretty much…

It's not only knowing how to filter the results, but knowing what to Google for in the first place. Often results will be different if the search uses slightly different terminology, and knowing what the right terminology to use is requires a little bit of domain knowledge. Once you have the domain knowledge, not only is it easier to determine what results are more likely to yield useful information, but you also get…

I see it more as a Family Feud style of reasoning. It's not just "how to ask the question" but "how other people would ask the question." Being able to model how other people would ask the question (empathy) is a key skill.

In my mind using jargon or appropriate domain-specific terminology is an instance of that.

Re: The best programmers are the quickest to Google

#130

Post by [deleted] »

PeterisP wrote: post #113
Apocryphon wrote: post #89

What was life like before Google? Sure there was documentation, and code comments, and senior devs you could ask. But surely that was less than Google? Or perhaps the scale of problems were less vast compared to now, so the amount of info you would get by Googling now was unnecessary back then.

A lot of reinventing the wheel and a lot of 'small lookups' that delay you for a few days instead of a few minutes - while you get the relevant info from a non-local person or a book that you don't have on your desk.

[deleted]
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