> I really wish people would just read the docs instead of just googling. I am working on a large typescript solution and almost every error in the application is due to the original developers not reading the docs and instead just googling stuff from stack overflow.
It's a bit more complicated than that. I do read the docs, but using the web is essential for me, for a few reasons:
- nowadays, a dev doesn't work on an area that can be included in a single book; one touches several different frameworks, and reading that docs for all of them can be just unfeasible
- the docs may not be good; you may be surprised that even the Linux API doc can be really bad
- there may be issues that require workarounds that are not described in the docs
- best practices may not be obvious even when reading the docs
- one can't assume that in a big doc, it's obvious where the solution for a problem is, which may force to read way more than expected
I think a dev can "google more than RTFM'ing" and still produce a good solution, if they intend to - that is, to process the information rather than blindly copy/pasting.
Thinking about it, the major problem seem to me unprocessed copy/paste, rather than "googling instead of RTFM'ing".
No, it's actually pretty simple. Software industry faces the similar problem that journalism faces, we increasingly skip on quality, in a race to the bottom. We hope to fix this by technology, but in the end we just create more work for ourselves.
> nowadays, a dev doesn't work on an area that can be included in a single book
Which is terrible because it means that there is less specialization and its benefits for productivity.
> the docs may not be good
You get what you pay for.
> there may be issues that require workarounds that are not described in the docs
You get what you pay for.
> best practices may not be obvious even when reading the docs
You get what you pay for.
Don't get me wrong, OSS is amazing, but in commercial software, you also pay for support & documentation. But since nobody wants to pay for the software anymore, we end up with using Google instead of reading the documentation. And this becomes self-fulfilling prophecy, why provide good documentation if nobody is gonna read it?
It would be ridiculous if somebody wrote an article stating that "googling it" is the most important skill for a mechanical engineer or a doctor. But for software engineering, it is acceptable. Looks like software engineering is becoming less and less about engineering every day.
Addendum: SW developers also seem to write less, comments or other human-readable explanations. This might also contribute to less appreciation of good SW documentation, and contributes to a worrying trend of being less literate.
> best practices may not be obvious even when reading the docs
I am right now working on a project because of the googling stuff has led to the worst practices at the moment. I have worked on many projects where people haven't bothered reading the docs and I have seen the same pattern for over a decade.
Whereas if they had read the docs the best practices would have been immediately apparent. So that argument hold no water with me.
> one can't assume that in a big doc, it's obvious where the solution for a problem is, which may force to read way more than expected
I want people reading more. Which was part of my overall point. People don't read enough. They go for the quick solution (which is copy and paste from stack overflow) produce something which is usually quite bad and then you normally have to redo that work because the moment you try to change something (due to changing requirements) the whole thing falls to pieces.
I've been guilty of it too. It is a bad habit that is produced through laziness.
I literally wrote docs at a previous place and people kept on asking for help on IM. I wrote the document so I wouldn't have to answer the same questions many times. People getting into bad habits and not looking for or writing docs literally causes a hell of a lot more issues that you would see at first glance.
> Thinking about it, the major problem seem to me unprocessed copy/paste, rather than "googling instead of RTFM'ing".
I would rather have a unprocessed copy and paste then what you get in reality which is a "copy pasta". There are minor bits changed which make it difficult to recognise where it may have originally come from, which makes it difficult to know the original developer's intent.
It's a bit more complicated than that. I do read the docs, but using the web is essential for me, for a few reasons:
- nowadays, a dev doesn't work on an area that can be included in a single book; one touches several different frameworks, and reading that docs for all of them can be just unfeasible
- the docs may not be good; you may be surprised that even the Linux API doc can be really bad
- there may be issues that require workarounds that are not described in the docs
- best practices may not be obvious even when reading the docs
- one can't assume that in a big doc, it's obvious where the solution for a problem is, which may force to read way more than expected
I think a dev can "google more than RTFM'ing" and still produce a good solution, if they intend to - that is, to process the information rather than blindly copy/pasting.
Thinking about it, the major problem seem to me unprocessed copy/paste, rather than "googling instead of RTFM'ing".