When NOT to Google
Yeah the topic is intriguing by itself but I thought about writing about this a while ago due to several incidents with several people.
I started with my IT career at the age of 11 where my first job was to administer a LAN gaming shop, back then here in Lebanon the internet was a thing of magic literally and even then search engines were not as much rich as today nor the content was as much vivid as today’s (thanks to the all mighty bloggers out there ^_^).
Back then it was either I could find a good manual (that hasn’t been written in assembly English ;-)) to digest, or it was a lot of trial/error and tinkering and breaking things, today I find myself with the same habit but I have a backdoor/quick-exit called the Google search engine (which I am thankful for very much).
I stumble against a lot of people whom actually just go directly to Google for anything, from my point of view this kills all the fun and limits your grasp towards understanding products and appreciating them. Its not about re-inventing the wheel and its not about not using your time correctly, its about the journey and it will always be about the journey no matter the results and figuratively speaking “Walking towards a destination is definitely not like taking the car/train towards it” as the latter will for sure broaden your view on every bit of the road (hence more experience).
Don’t get me wrong, if you have an issue and you need something on the spot you’d be mistaken not to use the search engine, but for example when you have a product to test rather than just searching for “How to …” go ahead and install it, break it! Take notes then read the manual then research on specific configurations, nothing beats the feeling of the “AHA!” gesture when you get something working because YOU managed to extract the logic out of it.
Eventually I might be mistaken but it is certain that if you do not walk then you’re dumping all the fun and at a point in time you’d ask yourself “How the heck did I get here!”.
Any comments are well appreciated,
(Abdullah)^2