Something that has dramatically reduced my reliance on outside resources is an editor that can lookup symbol definitions.
I’m using Django and I used to use Sublime Text without any plugins which meant (at the time) it couldn’t automatically show me the definition of a function or object from a library, forcing me to search around for its documentation.
Switching to PyCharm/IntelliJ meant I could now just Command-Click (Ctrl-Click for Linux & Windows I believe) and see the actual definition and logic of the underlying function without having to rely on the online documentation. This of course works recursively, so I can repeat this process again and again up until I eventually reach the core standard library which is in C and isn’t introspective (at this point I can rely on my knowledge or some trial and error to figure out its behavior).
I'd argue that's just having Google-lite built into your IDE.
Personally I think that focusing on how you solve the problem loses sight of the fact that the only important thing is that you can accomplish the mission. If you can't build a basic web app on your own, but you can while salsa dancing w/ a mountain gorilla, I'll pay for your subscription to Spotify so you can stream Havana Kings while tearing up the dance floor w/ a Silverback (must provide own gorilla).
Well, it's not really like having "Google-lite" built in because all of that information is available on your filesystem. It's more like knowing exactly where your site-packages are and being very skilled with grep or some other search tool.
I’m using Django and I used to use Sublime Text without any plugins which meant (at the time) it couldn’t automatically show me the definition of a function or object from a library, forcing me to search around for its documentation.
Switching to PyCharm/IntelliJ meant I could now just Command-Click (Ctrl-Click for Linux & Windows I believe) and see the actual definition and logic of the underlying function without having to rely on the online documentation. This of course works recursively, so I can repeat this process again and again up until I eventually reach the core standard library which is in C and isn’t introspective (at this point I can rely on my knowledge or some trial and error to figure out its behavior).