1 query for every 10 lines of code? 12 years in, and I'm closer to 10 query for every 1 line I write.
Experienced Programmers Use Google Frequently
71–80 of 181 posts
Re: Experienced Programmers Use Google Frequently
#72I not only use Google frequently, I use it to search for things I myself have written in the past. I can't count the number of times I've Googled for a programming question where the answer is found on a Stack Overflow page I've written. If it's a particularly old answer that I've completely forgotten, I've even thought to myself, " Wow this genius sounds just like me! "[1]. [1]: ... as well as " This idiot has no cl…
That and finding a question you've search for, only to find out that question was also posted by you years ago. Bonus for ones with no answers still.
Or a question you had years ago. Couldn't find an answer. So you did a workaround and/or forgot about it.
Now you hit the same problem search -- and find you original question. But wait! Now there are half-a-dozen other people with the same problem! So you click on all of those links.
But none of them could find an answer either. Bonus points if there's a guy who comes in condescendingly and quotes a manual or some other standard piece of information -- which is also wrong. This is usually because they didn't pay enough attention to understand the question in the first place.
Re: Experienced Programmers Use Google Frequently
#73new series from 'O RLY':
Re: Experienced Programmers Use Google Frequently
#74I've been finding Google less useful in the last little while. It taunts me and tells me that I'm sorry Daniel, I've decided to exclude the most important keyword from your query. Domain-specific search tools - e.g. for programming, Dash.app - have become an increased part of my workflow partially because Google simply isn't giving me the results I am looking for.
Put keywords in quotes and Google will not exclude them.
Thank you, that's a helpful tip! I used to use many modifiers for my Google queries, but Google dropped support for many of them, and doesn't seem to document comprehensively what they actually support from day to day.
I wish excluded keywords were the only frustration. Their index seems to have gotten considerably worse at dealing with any somewhat "long-tail" query. I'm not sure why.
I suspect they've won the spam battle by aggressively purging from their index, but in doing so they've lost the spam war because the false positive rate on their approach is way too high. Or maybe I'm completely off base.
Re: Experienced Programmers Use Google Frequently
#75Another essential point here is when you get 'fancy' error messages. Google is amazing at finding why (and usually, The Patch) when you fail to compile random packages. I have my own little cross-distro builder[0] and I /rarely/ bother trying to dive into autoconf/make hell before cut+pasting the exact error message into google! That very likely saved my sanity many times over :-) Otherwise I agree with the article -…
Much like the sort algorithm that downloads and evals Stack Overflow answers until the list is sorted, someone should make a build tool that Googles any error output, installs possible patches, and restarts the build. It could even see if adding the patch caused a new error and decide whether to roll back or keep patching.
That seems like a pretty safe idea.
Re: Experienced Programmers Use Google Frequently
#76Let's say tomorrow there was some major catastrophy in which every disk drive or tape drive was wiped, and every computer had reset. How would we fare in rebuilding society? I guess it would be similar if in 1950, all of books lost their ink or all of scientists/engineers had amnesia. I'm not trying to make a point other than it is interesting to think about it.
Humanity would have to come together to reconstruct Angular and Bootstrap from the ground up.
Thus the end of humanity.
Re: Experienced Programmers Use Google Frequently
#77> “Never memorize something that you can look up.” - Albert Einstein Here's the actual [1], and perhaps more meaningful, quote: "[I do not] carry such information in my mind since it is readily available in books. ...The value of a college education is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think." [1] https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein
Yet we force people in interviews to remember things standing in front of a whiteboard.
Re: Experienced Programmers Use Google Frequently
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Much like the sort algorithm that downloads and evals Stack Overflow answers until the list is sorted, someone should make a build tool that Googles any error output, installs possible patches, and restarts the build. It could even see if adding the patch caused a new error and decide whether to roll back or keep patching.
That seems like a pretty safe idea.
Do it in a VM, and it is.
Re: Experienced Programmers Use Google Frequently
#79I often joke that my ability to formulate good Google queries is the single most important part of my software engineering skillset. Except, you know, I'm not really joking.
Having the skills to know what question to ask is important. How, for example, would someone with 0 computing knowledge look for answers to a problem they want to solve where, say, some form of ML would be the best solution? How would they evaluate the search results?
Re: Experienced Programmers Use Google Frequently
#80Experienced programmers probably also have a good feel for whether the problem they're having is truly unique (and not worth searching for), whether others will be able to articulate the problem, and how long it might take to solve the issue from first principles, hence how much effort is worth investing in the Google excavation.