Programming without internet

original on xkcd

Top 3 everyday programmer questions:

• how to make x
• why does it work like that and not that way
• how to name a variable.

With the third question, everything is clear - in principle, it is insoluble. With the first two more interesting.

To get answers, the programmers of the nineties read the source code and manuals. Programmers of the two thousandth began to actively google. And then in 2008, Stack Overflow appeared, and became an “external memory” for developers. Now 95% of the questions have a ready answer: the first link from Google to Stack.

What's the problem with stack overflow

It seems to be good: no need to understand the reasons in half a day. I copied the solution, pasted, we work on. But the bad thing is that external solutions pass by the head. When the person next time faces the same problem, he will climb onto the Stack again. And again. And again.

Another's decision is not remembered. There is no incentive to understand how it works. There is no sense of satisfaction when “earned!”. No new neural connections are formed in the brain. And without this, there is no memorization.

Further worse. When you abuse ready-made answers, you stop taking analogies and indirect decisions. Looking for one-to-one to be what you need. In the long run, this is a dead end.

And development with constant running from code in Google is not programming, but some kind of nonsense.

What to do with it

Download the documentation to be at hand. I recommend devdocs.io - a choice of 130 languages ​​and frameworks, for free.

Download the sources of binary libraries that are used in the project. Actually for languages ​​like Java and C #. Intelligent IDEs can do this on their own.

Use the five minutes rule . Faced a problem - five minutes trying to solve it without the Internet. It is allowed to use source codes, documentation and own brain.

For one-time tasks, the five-minute rule is not valid. If you are a web developer and suddenly have to deal with the lxml compilation bug on OracleLinux - do not start with the 800-page tutorial, just google the error text.

Five minutes without the Internet can be turned into ten or fifteen. Grigory Bakunov from Yandex generally recommends blocking access to Stack Overflow for 45 minutes of each hour. As for me, this is already too much.

And you did not catch yourself on the stack flow dependency?

More on the topic:

• Lecture by Grigory Bakunov “ Is it possible to program without the Internet ”, 20 minutes.
• Developer Tea Intentional Problem Solving podcast, 15 minutes.