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I cannot upvote you enough - especially on the first point. All the googling in the world is worthless without knowing what to Google for. The "trick" of exper

by groby_b 14y ago

I cannot upvote you enough - especially on the first point. All the googling in the world is worthless without knowing what to Google for. The "trick" of expert[^1] programmers is to know the difference, and to slowly expand the base they can build on. [^1] An expert is merely a person who has learnt from more mistakes. There's nothing magical about it, as much as the cult of the rock star programmer would have us believe otherwise.

bigiain 14y ago
And this is the unstated meta problem implied (but usually ignored) in that Einstein quote. Sure, you don't need to remember anything you can look up in a book (or Google), but you do need to know how to get to the right book again. Beginners aren't characterised by not knowing how to type queries into Google's search box, it's that they don't know _what_ to type. Being an expert isn't about being able to solve problems without outside knowledge, but it is very much about having enough awareness of a large body of outside knowledge that you've got the right terminology in your head to know what words to start typing into that search box. A beginner trying to format a number as currency is going to spend a lot more time looking than the programmer who knows they just need to type "perldoc -f sprintf" at the command line.
- sreyaNotfilc 14y ago
  "Sure, you don't need to remember anything you can look up in a book (or Google), but you do need to know how to get to the right book again." Well, I would actually say you need to know "why" you're looking for said book/solution first. Then after you've found the right book/solution then its a matter of how to get there. In my case, its all about having a good plan of attack. If you know where you're going, then its easy to Google for that solution to get to the next step in your plan.
- randomdata 14y ago
  I find knowing what to search for isn't that crucial. The brain is a very powerful pattern matching system, so you just look for something vaguely similar and search for that. Those results will virtually always lead you to the right terminology, at least in my experience, at which point you can modify your search query and drill down further. I suppose learning how to use Google this way is a skill in itself though.
gchpaco 14y ago
"Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement." I think Nasrudin?

by groby_b 14y ago

bigiain 14y ago

And this is the unstated meta problem implied (but usually ignored) in that Einstein quote. Sure, you don't need to remember anything you can look up in a book (or Google), but you do need to know how to get to the right book again. Beginners aren't characterised by not knowing how to type queries into Google's search box, it's that they don't know _what_ to type. Being an expert isn't about being able to solve problems without outside knowledge, but it is very much about having enough awareness of a large body of outside knowledge that you've got the right terminology in your head to know what words to start typing into that search box. A beginner trying to format a number as currency is going to spend a lot more time looking than the programmer who knows they just need to type "perldoc -f sprintf" at the command line.

sreyaNotfilc 14y ago
"Sure, you don't need to remember anything you can look up in a book (or Google), but you do need to know how to get to the right book again." Well, I would actually say you need to know "why" you're looking for said book/solution first. Then after you've found the right book/solution then its a matter of how to get there. In my case, its all about having a good plan of attack. If you know where you're going, then its easy to Google for that solution to get to the next step in your plan.
randomdata 14y ago
I find knowing what to search for isn't that crucial. The brain is a very powerful pattern matching system, so you just look for something vaguely similar and search for that. Those results will virtually always lead you to the right terminology, at least in my experience, at which point you can modify your search query and drill down further. I suppose learning how to use Google this way is a skill in itself though.

gchpaco 14y ago

"Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement." I think Nasrudin?