*This post originally appeared in my other blog on March 30, 2008
When I say us, I refer to programmers.
Most of the programmers I have seen, use Google to find a quick solution.Its no doubt that Google makes the life of programmers easier. Everything is at their finger(s) tip(s). Type what you want in that small textbox and click search. That’s it. We search and find solutions in seconds. But do we remember what we have done? Do we remember that solution? Do we learn anything through this process? That’s one true hell of a question.
Whenever I go to Google to get a solution, if my boss is at my desk, he would question : why don’t you think a solution yourself. He would add: I am not asking you to keep on thinking, but there is nothing you loose if you think for a minute before you ping Google. He has a point. But I wouldn’t listen to him. I would say myself: Oh come on, why do you want to reinvent the wheel? Its already there. Someone has found a solution, I am just going to use it. Why would I think and waste my time and of course the company’s most valuable billing time. I have a point too. 
We search and find a solution for PROBLEM 1 through google. We implement it. How? Mostly cut-copy-paste of the code snippet. And then we forget it. We have another problem. PROBLEM 2. We happily go to our grandpa (Google) and he readily gives a solution. We again do the simple job of cut-copy-paste. But after some period of time, if we again face the same PROBLEM 1, we don’t remember the solution which we have implemented previously. We got no time to think, so just ask Google. And this process continues.
Google helps us to find a solution and also keeps us dumb. Machines makes us lazy most of the times. I am not saying that we have do everything on our own, but if we find a solution through Google, we have to pay some attention and really learn what we have implemented. Just cut-copy-paste would lead us to nowhere.
Filed under: Rants, Social Issues, Technology , Developers, Google, Software Programmers
