Develop without Googling

By | January 11, 2014

Google-BrainYesterday I was playing with Kudu, the Azure websites deployment engine, and it was all fun and joy.

While I was happily hitting the key strokes of joy enjoying the new cool stuff I implementing, I got an error, and shamefully the minute I saw the error I copied and pasted it to Google!
For my bad (and later good) luck, after opening two links from the search results I discovered that I am late; I have to hit the road, so I instantly closed my laptop, pushed it in my bag and ran.

In the train I thought I can continue investigating and use my mobile for tethering, the surprise was is that the train became full within minutes, and it was physically impossible to take my phone out of my jeans and juggle with my opened laptop.
”Just great!” the sound in my head whispered… at that very moment I remembered Scott Hanselman’s post “Am I really a developer or just a good googler”, and that was my chance; I kept going on, no Google, no internet, just me, my brain, and the problem.
Being under such constrained situation, you instinctively squeeze your brain and your set of skills to find a solution; it becomes like Limitless the movie, things become slower, you can read better, and you simply “think” deeper.
Before I reached my final stop, I solved the problem! the rush of winning was indescribable.

The lesson learned is not about developing without Googling or having a reference, the lesson learned here is that the internet is merely a tool, it’s NOT your deposit of answers, it is NOT your remote brain; don’t make it think for you; YOU think first, and when you need information beyond your mental capabilities, only then use the internet.

Happy programming.

3 thoughts on “Develop without Googling

  1. Moa'yad Raja

    So we can understand from this post that you went home in a congested train and Sydney needs a better transit systems 🙂

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