News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:When you lose the ability to write, you also lose some of... by Arisaka1 on Thursday May 11, 2023 @03:29AM (#35898948)
I can only begin to wonder what would his opinion on Google search would be since we (developers) always practice the "don't memorize what you can easily search", and there's a sizeable amount of people claiming that memorization shouldn't even be a concern most of the time, and that's an advice given to people who are new in the field (like myself).
Re:When you lose the ability to write, you also lose some of... by marginalia_nu on Thursday May 11, 2023 @03:32AM (#35898973)
Do people really practice this? Like I usually physically unplug my computer from the network as I develop as it's such a distraction to have emails and stuff popping up. Doesn't really feel like a limitation to not be able to look stuff up.
Re:When you lose the ability to write, you also lose some of... by Kim_Bruning on Thursday May 11, 2023 @05:18AM (#35899735)
I go in the completely opposite direction nowadays. I have chatgpt [*] up, I use google searches, I have online api documentation and tutorials open. I log on to IRC and chat with (other) skilled developers. (psst... I even read stack overflow ... sometimes [*]) ... so ... I definitely use the internet a lot while developing.

As mentioned above, I do try to research things to the point of understanding. Which is something human contact definitely helps with. To stay on topic: ChatGPT is obviously less good, but is often good enough, is patient, and guaranteed to answer you in a couple of seconds.

[*] My exact workflow would not quite fit into this footnote, but I seldom cut-and-paste answers, unless it's for something exceptionally non-critical. I try to understand what is written and then type out my own version (which should be very close), or at very least I type it across by hand rather than use ^C-^V. (the latter is an edge case). In general, there's this AI-koan about how some things only work if you also understand them, which has a kernel of truth to it. ( http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/koans.html first one about tom knight)

Re:When you lose the ability to write, you also lose some of... by Kim_Bruning on Thursday May 11, 2023 @04:09AM (#35899270)
I think understanding is more important than both. Even if you're cut off fro the internet somehow, you can still re-derive things if only you understand them. And understanding also allows you to solve novel problems.