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Discussion on: When is learning what to Google good enough?

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leob • Edited

In many cases, Google/SO is just the quickest and most practical way to get stuff done fast. But, you shouldn't copy/paste an answer without having at least some basic understanding of what it's doing.

The situation where I use Google, SO and Github issues the most is for troubleshooting - when some obscure error pops up. In that case it's often the fastest way to solve a problem - this isn't about 'learning' something but about bugs in software that others have already solved or worked around, and I don't want to spend my time debugging through all of (it if that's even possible).

I know there are many "purists" who are against any form of Googling or copy/paste from SO, and who say you should learn everything from first principles and read the docs from begin to end (and solve problems by starting up your debugger), but I think that's rather out of touch and a bit elitist, there's just not enough time to go that route.

(but should you know about the general principles of web dev and the tools you're using? yes by all means)