Well there is this quote, often attributed to Einstein himself: “Never memorize something that you can look up.”
I don't know whether he really said or thought anything like that, and I also don't actually agree with the literal meaning. There are some things that it pays to memorize, in my opinion. As I keep reminding my daughters: times tables (or math facts as they seem to be known nowadays) are important forever.
The principal behind the quote, however, I'm fully behind. I live in the docs. Even if it's something that I know pretty well, I often like to check to make sure I understand exactly what's going down. There are too many little details that are easy to forget. If it's important and you aren't sure, look it up!
Finally, I could probably claim to be able to write build a simple web app without using google, but I'm sure I would lean heavily on my editor to remind me of argument order, syntax, etc. Maybe there is a little bit of difference there: if my editor/IDE can tell me what I need to know, it's probably just that bit faster than searching for it in a browser.
There is some truth to that quote, namely that becoming effective at looking things up is a big productivity booster.
But there is no productivity booster as large as knowing exactly how to do something without needing to look it up. This is almost by definition the level of mastery that comes from significant practice / experience.
I've noticed that some of the very smart people I've worked with for years did not ever really achieve mastery of their language or tools, and I think that's at least partially because they didn't care to take the time to try and figure things out without looking them up, and thus the inner workings of things remained inscrutable to them.
I don't know whether he really said or thought anything like that, and I also don't actually agree with the literal meaning. There are some things that it pays to memorize, in my opinion. As I keep reminding my daughters: times tables (or math facts as they seem to be known nowadays) are important forever.
The principal behind the quote, however, I'm fully behind. I live in the docs. Even if it's something that I know pretty well, I often like to check to make sure I understand exactly what's going down. There are too many little details that are easy to forget. If it's important and you aren't sure, look it up!
Finally, I could probably claim to be able to write build a simple web app without using google, but I'm sure I would lean heavily on my editor to remind me of argument order, syntax, etc. Maybe there is a little bit of difference there: if my editor/IDE can tell me what I need to know, it's probably just that bit faster than searching for it in a browser.
Shoutout to lsp-mode.