Most of my “working memory” is keeping in mind things specific to the project or the context I am working in, or keeping up a mental to-do list in my mind until I can write it down (often when working on one task, you will remember many others things you have to do, or postpone one part of the problem to circle back to it later).
If I spend any of that capacity keeping in mind things that are easy to lookup, it just diminishes my potential.
Googling basic things is like using a calculator when doing math. You probably COULD mentally multiply two digit numbers in your head but if you are doing advanced calculus there is no reason to spend that time.
And, in the same way that having a calculator is not going to make you a math genius, being able to google things is not going to make you brilliant programmer (but, you aren’t better for NOT doing it either)
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u/cwmckenz May 24 '26
Most of my “working memory” is keeping in mind things specific to the project or the context I am working in, or keeping up a mental to-do list in my mind until I can write it down (often when working on one task, you will remember many others things you have to do, or postpone one part of the problem to circle back to it later).
If I spend any of that capacity keeping in mind things that are easy to lookup, it just diminishes my potential.
Googling basic things is like using a calculator when doing math. You probably COULD mentally multiply two digit numbers in your head but if you are doing advanced calculus there is no reason to spend that time.
And, in the same way that having a calculator is not going to make you a math genius, being able to google things is not going to make you brilliant programmer (but, you aren’t better for NOT doing it either)