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Comment by atacrawl | Hacker News Reader

I use Stack Overflow (and to a lesser extent, Google) to help me with problems large and small all the time. Why break your neck to find a solution without finding out if someone else already did? There's never a point when you can't learn from others.

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So much this.

I think that in most cases, I can reinvent the wheel if I have to (find my own solution). But why should I? Why not ask Google if there's already a library that does that?

It's like pair programming on a massive scale!

There's nothing wrong with learning from others, but you want to make sure you're actually learning. That means going through the StackOverflow answer and making sure you understand all the API calls involved, what they do, how you just combined them, and where to go to find documentation on them.

If you do that you'll get really good at your technologies really fast. If you just copy & paste the answer you'll have solved exactly one problem, and then you'll have to Google again for your next problem.

The question is, are you really learning? How much of that copy/pasted solution sticks with you a day or a week from now? The fact is we are missing the benefit of building up expertise that used to go along with spending time researching (through docs) and problem solving. When every problem is a google search away, there is a ceiling to how much expertise one can build up this way.

Edit: the reflex downvoters will be the end of this place.

Some solutions aren't worth committing to memory. Do I really need to remember all the flags on scp just to write a quick bash script when someone has already posted the correct incantation on StackOverflow?

Do you have to google it every time? The fact that repeated googling is required is a sign that something is off--either you're not growing from your experience or the API has too much friction. I've often felt this way when it comes to linux command switches. Just accepting that having to google everything is OK is the wrong answer here.

I always tell people that if it's worth memorizing because you use it a lot, you'll probably memorize it because you use it a lot anyway. If you have to make a point to memorize something, it's a hint to consider if it's worth the time.

I don't think people should put in effort to memorize things like command line switches. The issue I'm arguing against is accepting that we must now google everything to get work done. I agree that if its worth memorizing, you should eventually commit it to memory through repetition. The problem is that sometimes this doesn't happen. This is a sign of a problem, likely with the interface you're interacting with. If we accept the expectation is to just google everything, no one will ever stop to ask whether the interface itself is broken. If we accept that one should develop a mastery of their environment over time, then incentives form to improve ease-of-use, elegance, and "memorizability".

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