[convolvatron]

yes. depends what you are working on. if I need an on-disk range search structure its pretty irreplaceably valuable to be able to do a literature search and catch up to decades worth of thought on the topic. I'm not going to do nearly as well with just a whiteboard marker and some coffee.

lock free data structures. static analysis. solvers for systems of equations. cache maintenance techniques. concurrency control. etc.

most jobs though don't afford the latitude/scope for you to be looking into details like that in the first place.