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Am I really a musician, or just a good YouTuber?
The ability to learning how to utilize resources that are available to you so you can do your job better is a huge part of why I'd hire you.
That's very easy to tell during a coding and problem solving interview.
I'd rather hire someone who is able to use available resources efficiently than someone who just has a really good memory.
Before the ubiquity of spell checkers I never hesitated to pick up a dictionary to double check spelling or a definition. I've never thought twice to grab a text book, manual or encyclopedia to reference a subject I was familiar with but did not know by rote or fully comprehend. Memorization is a very useful skill, as is understanding & comprehension. There is no guilt or shame in not being omniscient.
I use Stack Overflow (and to a lesser extent, Google) to help me with problems large and small all the time. Why break your neck to find a solution without finding out if someone else already did? There's never a point when you can't learn from others.
I think that in most cases, I can reinvent the wheel if I have to (find my own solution). But why should I? Why not ask Google if there's already a library that does that?
It's like pair programming on a massive scale!
i will outline my experience on the next viennajs (our local JS meetup) http://www.meetup.com/viennajs/events/126159362/?_af_eid=126... in a talk called "coding an awesome real world problem solving web-app without internet access after your girlfriend deleted your dev-setup on a device that hates developers while traveling south east asia" - i will post the slides to HN after the talk. but (SPOILER) the conclusion as it contributes to this discussion:
EMBRACE THE INTERNET
- right click "view source" is a gift from the gods
- github is even better
- read the f_cking source, luke
so google away, but not looking for frameworks and other ready made solutions, but for (example or real world) sourcecode and understanding.
note: the only thing bearable to code without internet access was the chrome dev-tools, with auto-complete and object-inspection you can piece together most HTML5y APIs.
It isn't a crime if you occasionally need to google something. It is a crime if you copy and paste a solution you find without understanding how it works. This leads to cargo cult programming. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult_programming
Step 0 fire up the debugger/repl and poke. Step 1 read the docs (again.) Step 2 look at somebody else's code: the library and its tests, another similar project, or whatever. Use the source luke! Step 3 put a natural-language-ish query into google/stackoverflow. When you're properly competent with the language and tools you mostly won't get to step 3. By the time you get there, you're looking for a specific piece of…
I might be different from most, because I went from 0 to professional developer in under 5 years, and I can easily remember what it was like to find answers and not be able to know what to do with them, or how they worked. I still google for answers. A lot. But when I find an answer, even one that's not directly related to my problem, I'm still usually able to apply its principles to my solution.
It's that artisanry that makes us good developers. Hell, why do you think every industry has trade conventions? It was sharing trade solutions before Google.
I use Stack Overflow (and to a lesser extent, Google) to help me with problems large and small all the time. Why break your neck to find a solution without finding out if someone else already did? There's never a point when you can't learn from others.
Edit: the reflex downvoters will be the end of this place.