You're going to have a hard time making it through Hemingway if you have to reach for a dictionary every time you come across a word like "middleweight" or "khaki", even if your dictionary is online and answers your query in less than a second. You need to memorize the meanings of a vocabulary of words in order to read fluently or write well. That's not "old-fashioned thinking". It's just common sense. And it's just as true of shell scripts as it is of electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, poetry, or math.