[hybridtupel]

I want to question this. Sure there are many things where a google search brings up a better solution than the own spontaneous one (for example path finding algorithms for games). But every problem beyond a trivial ‘getting started’ needs more thought than an algorithm one can copy and paste from google. Even if it’s only the glue code to bring all parts together or transferring the knowledge to the problem trying to solve. Also what others already mentioned about noisy search results: Deciding which of the (hundreds of) possible solutions might bring the desired outcome is an engineering skill. Another thing: When googling the same issue for the third time one should question why he has not memorized it by now (e.g. syntax of commonly used bash commandos etc.). And by internalizing one gets better as engineer every day without relying on google.

[learc83]

Yeah for some reason software engineers love self depreciation. It's like we've internalized management's desire to make us low status cogs

Doctors google things, captial E Engineers google things, chefs google things, everyone googles things. Yet you don't hear them talking like this to the extent we do.

Like you said it's knowing what to type into Google, knowing how to filter the results, and knowing how to apply the information you that's the hard part.

[pi-victor]

^ this. so very much this.

for getting started guides, it's great, although even there i'd exercise a lot of caution. there's a lot of info from people who are not experience that people just replicate in their code/setup which isn't really a good idea.

for complex issues you never drown in information. and usually when you find something it probably doesn't apply to your setup. that doesn't mean you can't, at least, get some idea or a pointer to the right solution.

however, just googling or stackoverflowing, i'd be wary of implementing any solution without any thought just because someone else solved it before me.

[hybridtupel]

Yes, exactly!

There are tons of getting started guides for everything but beyond that, one will find a wasteland of information most of the time or it is scattered around in different locations. So in this case the engineer is working hard to figure out which pieces of the puzzle belong in which place. Not to mention that nobody knows how the finished puzzle has to look like.