The lookups aren't necessarily shallow. They are as deep as is necessary for the scholar at his current task. The undeniable truth is that if memorizing everyt

The lookups aren't necessarily shallow. They are as deep as is necessary for the scholar at his current task. The undeniable truth is that if memorizing everything Homer-style was effective in sciences, people would be doing it, achieving great results. But it doesn't happen, and it is easy to understand why: It is not effective. In our field, we don't need to remember every single parameter of an API we use, we just need to know where to look when the necessity arises, while we focus on more important things.