Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I’m not really a good web developer, I'm just good at Googling things

dev-diaries.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 229 posts

Re: I’m not really a good web developer, I'm just good at Googling things

#81

Post by antisemiotic »

braythwayt wrote: post #43
jim-jim-jim wrote: post #28

One of the things I don't like about webdev (among many) is that I even have to Google in the first place. Manpages are so much more immediate and accessible. I also think that anything js-adjacent has a real culture problem. Trying to dredge an answer out of a Medium tutorial written in a cloying tone and interspersed with pointless gifs can be such a groan enducing experience. I'm hoping that the community will mat…

Speaking as someone who writes blog posts littered with irrelevant pictures (but never on Medium!), I acknowledge your experience trying to solve a problem based on a blog post. Manpages and documentation are written to be references. Blog posts are written to be tutorials. They have different affordances, and as a result it is very hard to learn how to use something purely from a reference, and very different to sol…

This doesn't change the fact that irrelevant pictures (like memes and cheap popcultural references) belong neither in references nor blogposts, they're just a waste of time and bandwidth.

Tone is a different matter, tutorials sure can be more lighthearted. But I'd still take a dry tutorial instead of forced, stillborn humor any day. (I'm not sure if the latter kind is all that common in the wild, could be an illusion of frequency on my part).

Re: I’m not really a good web developer, I'm just good at Googling things

#82

Post by efdee »

tannhaeuser wrote: post #20
sbhn wrote: post #7

I can solve any problem, in any language using google, which will probably forward me onto stackexchange or Github.

Which begs the question why we're not going straight to stackexchange. I'm doing the same btw, just using DDG instead.

Because then we have to go straight to StackExchange -and- GitHub.

Re: I’m not really a good web developer, I'm just good at Googling things

#84

Post by jrs95 »

Just do some work in a dead framework for a couple years and then you'll be good to go. Even something as recent as Ember has little to no information on places like StackOverflow for the last 3-4 years, so you actually have to look at docs and source code instead.

Re: I’m not really a good web developer, I'm just good at Googling things

#85

Post by badatshipping »

ben509 wrote: post #76
badatshipping wrote: post #66

This just shows how shallow web programming is in intellectual content. If your expertise consists of stuff that can be looked up on the fly, all you need to join the field is a high enough IQ to comprehend those ideas at all. There’s no need for deep thinking or mastery. In what other technical field can you simply google everything? And is that because other fields are merely more obscure, or because they’re actual…

As someone who works on math intensive back-end stuff, and routinely can't google things, I'll defend web-devs: Most occupations are not intellectual in the slightest, nor do they require a high IQ. They do require other talents, though, such as a sense of aesthetics or technical ability, in this case. Not being intellectually rigorous doesn't mean they don't require careful thought or mastery. I could absolutely per…

I understand the point you’re making here, but having done webdev for about five years now this has just not been the experience of me or anyone I know. Admittedly, limited sample size and all.

The simple act of repetitively designing many hundreds of websites and then getting feedback from actual people as to how they work with those sites, that is mastery and it does take careful thought. So, yes, they're constantly looking up "recipes" to combine into code.

If I were at a party I would appreciate my job being described this way, but the reality is that webdev is mostly applied common sense + having a lot of the kind of knowledge that is googlable. Like, I’m successful career wise and I’m regarded as being quite good at my job, yet I don’t feel like I’ve mastered anything per se.

Whereas for my side project, an IDE for Golang, I feel I’ve actually had to learn difficult concepts that couldn’t be re-learned from a blog post.

I take back what I said about webdev not requiring thought, which was an exaggeration.

Re: I’m not really a good web developer, I'm just good at Googling things

#86

Post by [deleted] »

maxxxxx wrote: post #48
nvrspyx wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one said it’s not still valuable, but less so on it’s own with the advent of the internet and Google. The same thing can be said with taking notes in school: you’re less effective using human memory alone without the augment of note taking.

Yes, you need both. I think it's even more important today with the massive amount of information that's available. And in addition you need the skill to look up stuff.

[deleted]

Re: I’m not really a good web developer, I'm just good at Googling things

#89

Post by dillonmckay »

kawsper wrote: post #9

Using search engines sometimes feel like a lost art if you spend any time in Facebook groups, where people will ask mundande, simple, and easily Googleable questions. Sometimes I wonder if people do it to fill some sort of social need, and don't particularly care for the answer.

The intellectual fidelity on Facebook may be a symptom of the non-linear presentation of posts.

It is like organizing a library, by dumping all the books into a pile. It increases engagement at the expense of efficiently finding information.

Re: I’m not really a good web developer, I'm just good at Googling things

#90

Post by robocat »

runeb wrote: post #23
kawsper wrote: post #9

Using search engines sometimes feel like a lost art if you spend any time in Facebook groups, where people will ask mundande, simple, and easily Googleable questions. Sometimes I wonder if people do it to fill some sort of social need, and don't particularly care for the answer.

I can be both. I arrested myself typing out a “let me google that for you” reply on a small social network years ago. I realized doing that stops a conversation dead in its tracks. And sometimes people just want to have a conversation.

We have simple norm at work lunch - no googling for answers! It does make conversation better.
Post reply on HN