[new_guy]

I can't speak for anyone else but I wrote a chess engine by myself without using all the tutorials/guides out there.

Because it's the challenge, just having something handed to you or Googling it just takes all the fun away, plus when you look at prior work you risk blinding yourself to other ways that might not work but are still worth exploring.

But that's for personal stuff, for business it usually makes sense to check what other people have done, otherwise you get what's called 'not invented here'[0]

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_invented_here

[dr__mario]

If it's personal stuff, I can see the point in trying to do something without Googling at first and how that can be fun for many and interesting for learning, but still, I don't think that learning is "complete" without then seeing previous progress on the topic.