With respect to "searching for a fix on Google", I think you made a logical jump that caused you to overthink it -- he specifically mentions programming -- as opposed to _debugging_, which is what you seem to be getting at. While debugging is indeed an aspect of programming, I think the author was specifically speaking to programming.

And in that case, I couldn't agree more: if you have a programming challenge, you should at least make an honest attempt at it before consulting Google. Don't waste a lot of time on your own, but at the same time, at least give it a shot.