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I'm not even a mediocre developer, since I'm just a hobbyist, but I have found it extremely helpful to invest the time and just sit down with a printed out 'che

I'm not even a mediocre developer, since I'm just a hobbyist, but I have found it extremely helpful to invest the time and just sit down with a printed out 'cheat sheet' and learn standard library functions and standard packages and their functions by heart. Just recently did it with peewee.

photonios 9y ago
Do you feel this significantly speeds up development? I've always found this a pointless exercise since I can get the answer I need with a quick Google search. After working with a language or library for some time, most of these things become muscle memory. Rather than making a conscious effort to remember all of these things, I let my brain unconsciously decide what's important enough to remember.
- saintPirelli 9y ago
  I think it does. Not because I save the time of the Google search, but I can apply the functions and methods without distraction. Sure, a quick websearch is nothing that really holds you back in terms of time spent, but it opens a new tab in your browser and your brain and will divert your attention away from solving the actual problem you are working on.
- glic3rinu 9y ago
  A mix of the two approaches might yield the best results. At work I usually go by looking for quick solutions for the very specific problems I encounter, e.g. disable echo on a terminal, send data through a socket, ... And what I sometimes do over the weekend is to go over the problems I had and try to learn from the subject in a more generic way. e.g. learn TTY inner workings by reading the source code of python's pty.py standard library module, read the socket's documentation and understand all available socket operations, or watch some conference talk on the subject over youtube ... This second consolidation phase has proven very useful to me. Not only because of discovering interesting gems hidden in standard libraries and other references, but also to be able to anticipate and solve really weird/low-level bugs that otherwise would have been very difficult to approach.
majewsky 9y ago
If you have a cheat sheet on your desk, why do you also have to memorize it?
- saintPirelli 9y ago
  To keep a clean desk.

photonios 9y ago

Do you feel this significantly speeds up development? I've always found this a pointless exercise since I can get the answer I need with a quick Google search. After working with a language or library for some time, most of these things become muscle memory. Rather than making a conscious effort to remember all of these things, I let my brain unconsciously decide what's important enough to remember.

saintPirelli 9y ago
I think it does. Not because I save the time of the Google search, but I can apply the functions and methods without distraction. Sure, a quick websearch is nothing that really holds you back in terms of time spent, but it opens a new tab in your browser and your brain and will divert your attention away from solving the actual problem you are working on.
glic3rinu 9y ago
A mix of the two approaches might yield the best results. At work I usually go by looking for quick solutions for the very specific problems I encounter, e.g. disable echo on a terminal, send data through a socket, ... And what I sometimes do over the weekend is to go over the problems I had and try to learn from the subject in a more generic way. e.g. learn TTY inner workings by reading the source code of python's pty.py standard library module, read the socket's documentation and understand all available socket operations, or watch some conference talk on the subject over youtube ... This second consolidation phase has proven very useful to me. Not only because of discovering interesting gems hidden in standard libraries and other references, but also to be able to anticipate and solve really weird/low-level bugs that otherwise would have been very difficult to approach.

majewsky 9y ago

If you have a cheat sheet on your desk, why do you also have to memorize it?

saintPirelli 9y ago
To keep a clean desk.