[aavotins]

Maybe programming with Google by my side has taken away some of the romance I associated with programming, but it has certainly made me a better and more productive programmer.

I found a Zip drive(anybody remembers those?) with lots and lots of my early source code, circa 2004, when I programmed day and night, because it was so much fun to learn. There was no Stack Overflow back then and even Googling yielded fewer results. Unfortunately some of the creative solutions I came up with back then, make me cringe right now.

Being able to consult with knowledge and experience of people much, much smarter and wiser than me, has made me more productive. I don't waste time solving the same problems again and again, I can find tested and efficient solutions to problems quickly. I am more productive by leveraging all the knowledge. I am not paid to implement quicksort and then test it extensively to match already existing solutions that are blazing fast, I am paid to do real, practical work. The less boilerplate I have to write, the better.

Just my 2 cents.

[sklogic]

Internet is dark and full of stupidity. It is weird to expect it to feed you with a refined collective wisdom.

There are far better places full of knowledge. You know, good ol' libraries.

[mathgeek]

> I found a Zip drive(anybody remembers those?)

I remember playing Warcraft 2 off of a Zip drive simply because my hard drive was so short of space. Taught me many lessons about data bottlenecks and optimization.

Anyone who remembers Zip drives surely remembers the jealously towards those who had Jaz drives.