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“What do I have for all these hours I spent on the internet?” he said. “Nothing. I’ve got three bookmarks and a few notes here and everything else is basically

“What do I have for all these hours I spent on the internet?” he said. “Nothing. I’ve got three bookmarks and a few notes here and everything else is basically lost.” Myself and developers I've worked with suffer from this. Information is easily searchable so we never bother to memorize the function signature for things like substring(). Is it the (start index, end index) or the (start index, length)? This repeated googling of the same question (sometimes on a daily basis) is draining. I have a belief that this phenomenon is one reason HN bashes on tech interviews. Developers find that they actually have very little retained knowledge when placed in front of a whiteboard. They are dependent on Google and SO. I don't think taking notes in this NEW browser will alleviate this problem. Instead of Google you now depend on notes. Personally I recommend Mastery Learning[1]. It involves more effort but produces much more confident developers. When confronted with a new technology suggestion, don't forget to ask "What problem does this solve?" Maybe there is a low-tech solution that's better suited. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastery_learning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastery_learning

jokethrowaway 6y ago
I can't say I find this to be a problem for development, but I still bash on tech interviews. Mainly because the knowledge base required to solve an interview is vastly different from the knowledge base you use in your everyday job. As a teenager I was memorizing PHP function parameters for fun and I rarely had to jump to the docs. Even now that I have a family and my brain doesn't want to work, I rarely reach for GO or SO to do something. I mainly rely on static typing and jump to definition in the IDE. Every once in a while I forget something stupid (eg. I forgot how to floor in JS once and I was stuck with either doing >>0 or google how to Math.floor) but I can't say I would want to store this kind of information anywhere: It's too sporadic and it's incomplete; just keep the documentation of the tools you're using nearby if you need it. That said, I see the benefits for KB and I use them all the time. I agree with you, doing it in the browser won't change things much.
cjohnson318 6y ago
Usually, by the time I Google the same thing three or four times, I don't have to Google it a fifth. I use a knowledge base based on Johnny Decimal's system [0], but it's still usually faster to Google something than look it up unless I know exactly where it is. [0](https://johnnydecimal.com/ https://johnnydecimal.com/)
bitL 6y ago
> I’ve got three bookmarks and a few notes here and everything else is basically lost. Just record your desktop, storage and encoding are cheap.

jokethrowaway 6y ago

I can't say I find this to be a problem for development, but I still bash on tech interviews. Mainly because the knowledge base required to solve an interview is vastly different from the knowledge base you use in your everyday job. As a teenager I was memorizing PHP function parameters for fun and I rarely had to jump to the docs. Even now that I have a family and my brain doesn't want to work, I rarely reach for GO or SO to do something. I mainly rely on static typing and jump to definition in the IDE. Every once in a while I forget something stupid (eg. I forgot how to floor in JS once and I was stuck with either doing >>0 or google how to Math.floor) but I can't say I would want to store this kind of information anywhere: It's too sporadic and it's incomplete; just keep the documentation of the tools you're using nearby if you need it. That said, I see the benefits for KB and I use them all the time. I agree with you, doing it in the browser won't change things much.

cjohnson318 6y ago

Usually, by the time I Google the same thing three or four times, I don't have to Google it a fifth. I use a knowledge base based on Johnny Decimal's system [0], but it's still usually faster to Google something than look it up unless I know exactly where it is. [0](https://johnnydecimal.com/ https://johnnydecimal.com/)

bitL 6y ago

> I’ve got three bookmarks and a few notes here and everything else is basically lost. Just record your desktop, storage and encoding are cheap.