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If someone can get stuff done on the front-end and back-end at a senior level, who cares what they've memorized? I used to memorize all sorts of stuff. The onl

If someone can get stuff done on the front-end and back-end at a senior level, who cares what they've memorized? I used to memorize all sorts of stuff. The only advantage it gave me was occasionally sounding smart, which it came at the expense of learning actually interesting things, like how to pick a useful database schema.

filmgirlcw 5y ago
I don’t think of this as rote memorization tho. This is about, can you read, identify, and explain the different parts. Now, you might not think that is a good test to see if someone is competent or not — and I’m not going to pretend it is perfect. But as these things go, I don’t think it’s a bad starting point. I could explain nearly every one of those ten lines (and again, I’d have to see to full origin-trials line to know for sure, but I’d say there is a 70% I could infer/BS the answer), not because I’ve memorized anything but because I’ve spent years writing and reading this sort of thing. Now, if you asked me to write the first ten lines perfectly without any mistakes or use of code completions or boilerplate, I would almost assuredly fail. To me, that’s a stupid memorization test. But asking someone to explain why something is there and what it does, I don’t think that’s the same thing at all.
jenscow 5y ago
But for the job in question, this kind of stuff isn't memorisable factoids. Knowing what these 2 tags are for is fundamental, the wording of the attributes are vaguely self-descriptive, and recognising CSS from HTML is instinctive. You can't "get stuff done" without being able to at least bullshit the basics.
jrochkind1 5y ago
You don't know this stuff because you have "memorized" it, like with flash cards or something as some kind of memorization exersize. You know it because you know web technologies. It's weird to use "memorization" as basically a synonym for "remembered". Being a good developer is not just copy-and-pasting things from google, it involves actually understanding some technologies. Understanding technologies is not "memorization".

filmgirlcw 5y ago

I don’t think of this as rote memorization tho. This is about, can you read, identify, and explain the different parts. Now, you might not think that is a good test to see if someone is competent or not — and I’m not going to pretend it is perfect. But as these things go, I don’t think it’s a bad starting point. I could explain nearly every one of those ten lines (and again, I’d have to see to full origin-trials line to know for sure, but I’d say there is a 70% I could infer/BS the answer), not because I’ve memorized anything but because I’ve spent years writing and reading this sort of thing. Now, if you asked me to write the first ten lines perfectly without any mistakes or use of code completions or boilerplate, I would almost assuredly fail. To me, that’s a stupid memorization test. But asking someone to explain why something is there and what it does, I don’t think that’s the same thing at all.

jenscow 5y ago

But for the job in question, this kind of stuff isn't memorisable factoids. Knowing what these 2 tags are for is fundamental, the wording of the attributes are vaguely self-descriptive, and recognising CSS from HTML is instinctive. You can't "get stuff done" without being able to at least bullshit the basics.

jrochkind1 5y ago

You don't know this stuff because you have "memorized" it, like with flash cards or something as some kind of memorization exersize. You know it because you know web technologies. It's weird to use "memorization" as basically a synonym for "remembered". Being a good developer is not just copy-and-pasting things from google, it involves actually understanding some technologies. Understanding technologies is not "memorization".