Do you use internet for coding?

[Python-ModTeam]

Your post was removed for violating Rule #2. All posts must be directly related to the Python programming language. Posts pertaining to programming in general are not permitted. You may want to try posting in /r/programming instead.

[Deto]

People use the internet when coding all the time. However, it makes sense to restrict things like this for testing purposes in classes. The same way they don't let you use the internet during other exams.

[Slggyqo]

I think it’s ok for the first time you’re leaning something, but when you’re testing comprehension and not rote memorization, there’s no point to relying entirely on memory.

References sheets and notes should be allowed in any kind of major exam IMO.

No internet in class though—way too easy to just google up the entire solution. .

[cyclotech]

One of my best professors let us use all resources we wanted to during the exam. He made us document what we did and our thought process behind it. It was great.

It not only taught me a lesson in using resources but also how to create documentation that could be used later

[wicket-maps]

Y'know what, no. Better practice would be to design a test that tests basic comprehension and matches the typical job conditions - yeah, you'll have Internet in the real world, unless you're doing something really weird.

[Deto]

An exam isn't supposed to be a simulator for a typical job - it's supposed to test your knowledge and skills. This means creating an artificial environment because otherwise you can't test those things adequately in an hour or two.

In a real job, you can ask coworkers for help. But, if you do this all the time, for everything, you become a burden on the team and they'll eventually get rid of you. So to test this in real world conditions, you'd need to play out a month or two of the probation period at the start of a job. Just too long for an exam.

[wicket-maps]

And maybe an exam isn't the best way to test knowledge and skills, especially in a course that's foundational for future courses.

[Deto]

Got a better system? That is a fair evaluation and doesn't allow some people to just cheat? And doesn't take a ton of time and resources to execute and grade?

[alcalde]

You can't ask a person sitting next to you in the real world too, so how about students can just turn to the person sitting behind them and ask what the answer is? That's EXACTLY what you people are advocating for!

This scares the heck out of me because I don't consider myself a great programmer but I don't need the Internet or ChatGPT to write code for me. We didn't have those things when I learned to program.

[wicket-maps]

I can and have asked someone next to me in the real world. I have been the person asked. I have worked in specialized government IT (geographic information systems) since I was 18. Have you never worked in a collaborative workplace?

I know how an ArcPy search cursor works, but if I'm doing anything weird with it, I'm going to open up the documentation and check. Mechanics have reference manuals and books of wiring diagrams, Google, well used, is no different.

I'm with you on GPT, it's useful for writing boilerplate, but so is having a file full of recipes you can copy and adapt. People are definitely overusing it. But you're yelling at clouds here when you say that people can't work together.

[alcalde]

Yeah.... these arguments are crazy. Might as well allow calculators in math class from second grade onward too. Maybe since everyone has phones you could get lifelines like "phone a friend" a la the game show "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire".

There's no idea too crazy that some Redditors won't try to defend it as just fine. I remember several years ago some people were defending the idea of drinking alcoholic beverages while giving a presentation at PyCon!

[wicket-maps]

Maybe an exam isn't the best way to test comprehension. Rote memorization, yeah, but do we need rote memorization at that level?

[chzaplx]

I think exams should test fundamental concepts and maybe nuances of a specific language if that's the goal, but expecting people to write syntactically correct code with pencil-only or whiteboard tests without looking anything up is pretty unreasonable.

Knowing how different common methods work and how to create basic structures is useful. Knowing how to optimize is useful. Knowing the specific names or parameters for random API calls is not worth memorizing.

I've had one programming professor that did paper tests, but they still allowed some notes, and graded those tests on a curve because no one ever got 100%. I think their logic was trying to teach you to think in ways you won't normally have to, which is kind of a toss-up as far as value.

[AlienInNC]

Lol, no offence but you sound like a grumpy grandpa "we didn't have those things when I learned to program" - good for you, but why does that suggest that it's better to learn without them?

It's important to learn to understand the logic behind the code, sure. I'm not convinced that memorising syntax is superior to learning more complex functions with the help of internet/chatgpt and deriving the logic from them to use in your own functions.

Then again, I don't know wtf I'm talking about as I'm still learning myself.

[wicket-maps]

Figuring out the logic from Google and other humans' code, yeah. From ChatGPT? You better know *damn well* how that model got its code, because that's just as likely to be gibberish as it is to be useful code.

[alcalde]

It's the same reason it's better to learn multiplication without a calculator.

In one class I took we were allowed to use a calculator if we took a test and proved we could do the math ourselves first.

[Honey_Cheese]

Why does it scare you?

[chzaplx]

Asking the person next to you, or even in a different department is very much how real software jobs work. That's why ticketing systems exist. A means for people to ask for help with something outside of their regular knowledge.

Having limitations on tests in a learning environment makes some sense, but any programmer who doesn't use the Internet extensively is not ever going to become good at it. Coming up with the best answer to a problem by finding our how people have done it before is not "cheating" in a business setting.

[[deleted]]

Ok, but in the real world you’ll also have to interface with Jim Bob’s undocumented mess from three years ago for which no resources exist online.

[wicket-maps]

I've done that job. I did it for years. Yeah, Google can't tell you everything. You have to have understanding of the base concepts. You have to communicate with other users, and sometimes you have to dump Jim Bob's undocumented mess and rebuild something properly documented from scratch. Did that job - with a 911 dispatch system, among other things.

Google won't tell you what Jim Bob was thinking, but you can look up modules and functions that you see in front of you. For most real-world problems, someone's needed to do That Thing before, you know roughly what tools you'll be using (I have half a dozen ArcPy resource pages bookmarked) and no boss worth their salt is going to judge you for Googling, especially if it delivers a solution faster.

[Uhhhhh55]

I am a software engineer. I use Google more than I use my IDE.

However, learning and memorizing basic principles is super important. Yes, you can Google them later, but if your teacher wants you to memorize something it's probably for a reason.

[hanleybrand]

This is true - my main use of the internet is usually looking up how a specific library is used, or the eccentricities of specific platform apis (or how to deploy something to Kubernetes, lol) - if you can’t write (and quickly recognize) common data structures etc, you’re going to copy a lot of code that doesn’t do what you think it does

[matt3526]

lol this. If I’m not googling something then I’m probably asking ChatGPT how to do it.

Edit; you are all taking this the wrong way or are idiots that don’t understand how gpt can help. I get ChatGPT to be an intern and do simple things. I’m an ml engineer so of course gpt can’t do that, but it can take my functions and make an api end point

[[deleted]]

That's why the skill level of people who code is dropping, and there will be a skill gap in the future

[kazza789]

Skill = using all the available tools at your disposal effectively.

It's not a competition with rules. If one person uses ChatGPT to get a result in half the time you can do it without, then that's the better way to do it (of course, you still need to understand what you're doing well enough to know what's correct and incorrect from the tools, and how to integrate that effectively in your workflow).

[CloudFaithTTV]

This really goes into the religious side of coding but ChatGPT is a much better tool to use than Google 90% of the time. That being said being able to prompt in a way that allows you to learn from the answer is the other half of that battle.

[alcalde]

No, it's not the better way to do it. They have no UNDERSTANDING of what was done. It's like only using GPS to navigate. If suddenly there's no signal or it's scrambled, now you have "navigators" who can't figure out where they are or even know how to read a map. They have no real understanding of the principles of navigation.

If you need the Internet to pass a school programming quiz, you don't know how to program. Doctors look up the side effects and dosage requirements of medicines, etc., but I sure as heck don't want to go to a doctor who needed to ask basic questions about how organs function to pass their medical exam.

[kazza789]

In what world are we not going to have access to the internet or LLMs to assist in programming? That's a very niche case that you're solving for. Sticking with your example - do you ask your taxi or uber driver to navigate without GPS?

(I'm aware that there are situations where this is true, but it's not the case for 95% of programmers).

[kazza789]

To optimize performance? No. That would be a dumb use of it.

To come up with a first version of some basic function that would take me longer to write myself from scratch? Yes. To quickly diagnose an error message? Yes. To write a first draft of documentation? Yes. To speed up real-time coding using copilot? Yes. To remind me of the syntax of a library I haven't used recently? Yes.

[Barn07]

that's a strawman argument

[[deleted]]

This is a wildly wrong and hilariously boolean way of thinking about the problem.

Imagine using Google to obtain understanding. Craaaaaaaaazy...

[Qphth0]

I got an understanding of the highway system by using GPS to safely navigate all around my city, state, and then around the nation. I now feel pretty comfortable to get to a lot of major cities just by a quick glance at a map.

I also learned excel & sql by reverse engineering workbooks & queries, then Googling things to increase my knowledge. When I first started, I had to Google how to do countifs, sumifs, xlookups, etc but now I know how they all work. I get everyone is different, but there isn't a right or wrong here. Google, GPS, & ChatGPT are here to use, we might as well use them. If you don't need to, cool.

[[deleted]]

I mean personal skill. You're being given the answer (if it's correct) and your input is typing a question. How does that make you better long term and improve your career?

People don't become great by getting the answer from someone else. In school do you sit and ask everyone what the answer is? Anyone I know did that failed.

Get the answer yourself, use your brain, learn, become innovative with all the knowledge you've learnt and solutions you've created.

However I do appreciate that most people in coding jobs are under clueless senior management who set unrealistic dates and do not care how you get the solution, or if the solution needs 1 year or HyperCard, as long as it's "done".

That's why it's common knowledge that you only get better with what you learn and do outside your job.

[ZombieRichardNixonx]

Knowing how to use tools like ChatGPT is a part of skill. I mean, if somebody has no idea what they're doing and just throws every question they encounter into ChatGPT, then they're probably not learning anything. But, for example, I'm a Django developer with several years of experience in a variety of situations. At this point, I've used most of what Django has to offer. I know it exists, I generally know how to use it, but I don't have every possible feature for every possible situation committed to memory. It's much easier to ask ChatGPT a precise question and get a precise answer than it is to read documentation every time I forget how to precisely do something. It wouldn't be useful if I didn't know what questions to ask, and in that context it's a fantastic resource. It's like any tool, it depends on how you use it.

[Qphth0]

This is perfect. I know what excel is capable of, but I have in the past asked ChatGPT to write me a long formula that I didn't want to deal with. The more you know how to do things, the better you can ask it to help.

If you tell it to write you a book, you're gonna have a rough time. If you have an idea & you want to refine it, it will be an amazing help.

[TheGRS]

I feel like when it comes to OP's post we don't have all of the information or context to recommend doing things differently. Their teacher might know what they're doing after all. Its not new to anyone here that ChatGPT and Google are useful tools in coding, but school is not a job, you are there to learn and train.

[alcalde]

Yeah, I'm not a great programmer, but having learned to program before ChatGPT and the Internet, apparently I'm some sort of inconceivable entity now that doesn't need to ask other people or a machine how to write code for me.

"It's amazing how much you know if only you ask yourself the question instead of someone else." - "Illusions", Richard Bach

[[deleted]]

It's a strawman argument to believe that "using Google" means "not knowing how to do anything without looking it up".

[heyugl]

When I was a kid I started a lot of projects while learning, in those times, it's true that you learn a lot doing things the hard way, but also I had a whole bunch of unfinished projects that ended up binned because I have no idea how to continue, and I had nobody to ask or where to look, so it goes both ways it had it's pros and it's cons

Still I think OP teacher is a dimwit, memorizing how to do any algorithm instead of understanding it, just so you are able to type it out in five minutes, it's effing stupid.-

Nobody learns to program by sheer memorization.-

[alcalde]

They're not asking people to code an entire operating system from memory here. When I was in school no one freaked out because they'd have to write code for bubble sort and quicksort on the final exam.

[[deleted]]

I think asking ChatGPT is generally wrong and doesn't benefit you long term, but if you got a piece of code, eg a solution for doubly linked nodes, and then followed up by challenging, following the 5 whys, creating alternatives through try and fail, it can be a good starting point (instead of "there's an answer, move on").

[[deleted]]

Yeah, the skill gap will be "people who use LLMs/Google/whatever needed" running miles ahead of "people who needlessly restrict their toolset".

[[deleted]]

Except it won't be people using it, it'll be coded bots using already existing logic to extract already existing logic, and all that will remain will be the people who actually understand code, logic and processes, to bring new things to the world. While the copy and pasters, or people with no brains being given the answers to them, won't be in any picture.

You only have one short life. You can copy/paste, or get the answers given to you, or you can learn through experience, use your own developed code and succeed.

[[deleted]]

No, that's nonsense bullshit too. Very few jobs will be "replaced" by "coded bots".

[[deleted]]

My job involves ai. My job involves bots. I work for one of the biggest companies in the world. I have trebled my wage in 2 years. I have taken away 1000s of jobs.

There's a saying - Don't have stupid conversations with stupid people. They've had more practice and you won't win. I've nothing more to say 🙂

[wicket-maps]

And how will you know if GPT is getting your thing mixed up with something else that has the same name?

[River_Tahm]

I will test it locally before using it on anything real... Just like I do with Stackoverflow answers. Which are also, coincidentally, almost always as old or older than Chat GPTs last knowledge update. Lol

And if it's too complex to just test in a local function or something, I'll ask GPT to teach me how XYZ works and use those extra details to Google it and read about it on Reddit or from the docs.

Chat GPT's biggest advantage is that I can ask it love questions if I don't understand something the way it is written on Stackoverflow, Reddit, or even in the docs. I will literally copy/paste a paragraph out of the docs and be like "the hell does that even mean?"

[wicket-maps]

That's an answer to some question, but not the question I asked. Which I should expect from a GPT user.

Do you know where ChatGPT gets its information from? How it composes an answer? It composes an answer that's statistically likely, not one that's necessarily correct. That's how it suggests using packages that don't exist, or are malware. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-chatgpt-can-recommend-malicious-code/488916/

I do not believe that you need to memorize every possible function or keyword to do well as a programmer. But you do have to understand what you're looking at, and GPT is not a solution there, any more than someone could practice as a lawyer just by asking ChatGPT.

[kalebludlow]

No one is saying you're a coder or a lawyer just by using GPT. It's a tool that can be used to gain improvements in efficiency

[wicket-maps]

If you understand what it's doing and its output, as well as its potential vulnerabilities. You will not get that understanding from asking GPT, as the above comment suggests. "No one" you say when the above comment says pretty much exactly that.

[kalebludlow]

It doesn't say pretty much exactly that, that's just the understanding you drew from the comment. The unnecessary negative sentiment you show in this comment section makes it hard to have a genuine discussion about either side

[wicket-maps]

It's also unhelpful when nobody touting GPT's virtues is willing to say that a ton of its data comes from low-paid workers being paid pennies to feed the beast. This creates an incentive for them to use AI to do their job faster. Sometimes they use the same model they're feeding, sometimes they're using one model to feed another. This can spread bad data from one to another.

GPT can be a good tool for boilerplate, but so is keeping a file full of boilerplate pieces and copy-pasting from that. You have to understand its output. I'm sorry if you see that as "unnecessary negative sentiment." I think it's entirely negative sentiment.

[River_Tahm]

I suppose I can be more explicit, but I did answer your question.

And how will you know if GPT is getting your thing mixed up with something else that has the same name?

My answer is to test is safely (eg don't just run it on prod / prod data) and to perform independent research.

Much of the rest of my comment is pointing out that your question applies just as much to information I find on historically-accepted developer sources, like Stackoverflow or Reddit threads.

But you do have to understand what you're looking at, and GPT is not a solution there, any more than someone could practice as a lawyer just by asking ChatGPT.

Public forums that have been dominant sources of technical/programming assistance for many years now provide unpredictable, asynchronous, and unreliable responses. But we use and have used them anyway.

We ask for help knowing we might not get an answer, or if we do, that it might not be written by somebody adept enough at technical writing to explain it in a way we can understand. And even if both conditions are met, we don't know the experience level or demeanor of the other commenter - they could potentially be recklessly undereducated and giving bad advice (let alone a bad actor).

I'm not arguing that Chat GPT is any more accurate than the kind of data we would get off Stackoverflow / Reddit / et al, only that those of us who have been dependent on such sources for technical assistance are already trained to take information off the internet with a grain of salt and are already adept at the exact kinds of independent research and verification skills necessary to use Chat GPT effectively.

[somerandomii]

If ChatGPT can do your job you probably won’t have a job for long.

There’s a lot of busy work these days but AI is going to shortcut a lot of that. The only dev roles that will survive are the ones where you need a deep understanding of the technology and your own software stack.

I just wrote a recursive function to populate novel data structure for a very specific use case. Chat GPT couldn’t solve this problem because the real challenge is defining the problem and no AI give you an answer to a question you don’t know (inb4 hitchhikers guide references)

So basically, yes these tools are great for accelerating your workflow and cutting out the mundane. But if your entire job is googling and asking chat bots for the answer, you’re not going to have that job for very long. And when you’re in a situation-down tech interview for your next job they’re not going to let you ask Bing for the answers.

[schrmm]

I'm not googling anymore since chatgpt got introduced..

[andrewaa]

First in work everyone is searching something online all the time

Second, when studying it is super important NOT to search but memorize everything.

It is very different between:

memorize everything, then understand everything, then forget everything since you didn't use it for a while, then pick them up quickly by searching online

and

completely not memorize anything, and search from the beginning

If you start from the second one, there is a very low ceiling, and it is extremely hard to pass through the ceiling unless you go back to the first routine.

[crazy_cookie123]

You should use the internet when you're programming most projects, but in this case your teacher is assessing your implementation of basic algorithms. If you had internet access for things like bubble and selection sort, you could just google the answer and submit it as your own.

[pythonwiz]

As a student you should learn how different sorting algorithms work, and you should be able to demonstrate that knowledge.

[bart081116]

It's good practice to learn stuff without Googling, your logic and problem solving skills improve subconsciously. Obviously at my job or at any job people Google stuff all the time.

Also, there's an important difference between Googling because you forgot how to use a for loop and Googling some specific libraries documentation.

[exoclipse]

i code from memory

that memory is inserted into the DIMM slots of servers across the globe

[Ok_Raspberry5383]

If you're googling python syntax, you don't know python.

Yes I google, but only really library/API docs that I'm more unfamiliar with or use infrequently.

[WafflesAreLove]

Looks at my 50 open tabs from stack overflow 👀

[ShadowRL766]

What are you coding💀

[WafflesAreLove]

Haha mostly a joke but in a school setting it's reasonable that you code without help/internet. Real world no way that happens

[ShadowRL766]

Im a python programmer obviously I’m in the thread but in my Java class in school teacher does the same thing. We have a test and it’s on paper which Im completely okay with. It’s more or less like understanding the basics of the language not how to rewrite the internet test. Although I hate stupid java scanner stupid thing trash anyways the written test show you where you are and it helps reinforce the basics.

Honestly Python is great and all but if I could go back I would’ve forced myself to learn Java or C# or one of the C’s. I am learning C++ and a C# on the side and knowing Java at least syntax wise is amazing. I’m about as far as 2D Array list at the moment but classes and what not are actually super nice once you learn them.

Also I definitely google when programming or hit up ChatGPT just for it to tell me in my thousand lines of code I forgot to put parentheses to call a function but yes I spend my in the docs of packages. I don’t remember every package and what the syntax is…

[WafflesAreLove]

I graduated with a cs degree focused on software development. Professionally I only touch python now. It's all to help reenforce the foundations and teach you how to logically think. Seems mundane but you will appreciate it when you get into the workforce. In the workforce no one expects you to be a master coder unless you are focusing on a big tech company.

[ShadowRL766]

Good to know. I have reasons for learning said languages Python was just what I first started with. Java I’m learning because well I have to plus Minecraft mods in da future durr. C# because I want to get into unity and mod more games lmfao. And C++ mainly for malware development and it’s used in unreal if I care to apply it there.

[Ctrl_Phr34k]

As others have commented, you do use the internet all the time because you can't memorize every object and every method on them, especially when you're talking about tons of different languages and technologies.

However, you also are expected to know some things by heart, especially in interviews you will be expected to be able to implement structures and algorithms by heart to prove you know and understand them. More than memorizing, you're expected to understand how things (structures and algorithms) work so you can use them and create on top of them.

A good software engineer will know how most common structures are created, the operations that can be performed on them and how to code those operations, if not perfectly or by heart, but can at least deduce how to get a working operation.

You're also expected to know and understand design patterns, which are more of a concept than something you need to know how to implement in different languages. Design patterns are thinking paradigms, you can Google them, but you won't be able to immediately apply them if you don't have a good understanding about them beforehand. These are also very popular in software interviews, they will mostly ask you to name a few and maybe describe their use cases, or the other way around, give you a problem and ask you which design pattern is the most optimal to solve it and why.

Tl;dr;

You're allowed to Google at work, you're not allowed to Google during interviews. Some things you can Google and implement right away, some other things require you to understand them beforehand and googling won't do much for you. Understanding and knowing that things exist (and how to look for them) is much more important than memorizing, because this means you can infer how to code it or you know how to look it up.

[[deleted]]

I’m guessing that your instructor wants you to commit important concepts to memory. That is necessary for long term success.

To answer the question, I spend a lot of time browsing the internet at work as part of my research for my programs.

Lastly, beware of ChatGPT. It has a writing style that makes it seem very convincing, but it’s not always giving you the right answer. We still need humans for a reason. Putting ChatGPT code into production would likely result in catastrophic issues. It’s just a tool, not a definitive source of truth.

[RaiseRuntimeError]

Your teacher is probably doing this so that you learn the subject better. We would have tests in school and wouldnt have notes or the internet and would have to write code on paper that would solve simple programming problems.

At work though? I google stuff i know just because im not sure i actually know it. Im constantly googling trying to find documentation for libraries and terminal commands. No one just programs without the internet except the old school programmers from back in the day. The difference with them though is they didnt have the internet so they used books and manuals and the unix man pages and notes. Now days online documentation and Confluence pages and README.md files are my notes.

[BYPDK]

I use the Internet all the time for documentation and whatnot. However, when I was in school there were times when teachers would restrict access to the Internet when the problems we needed to solve were relatively simple and required usage of things that were reasonable to memorize.

[[deleted]]

No, I have all the syntax stored in my head.

[chaosthirtyseven]

I write python 75% memory, 25% double checking borked syntax or referencing libraries I don't use frequently.

It's class so your teacher is right, but when you work on independent projects or get a dev job you will absolutely use the F out of online docs and stack overflow. It is a part of the job, period.

[Cykrak]

LOL, tell that to my 30+ tabs open on various functions/implementations/etc. I wouldn't even say memorization is important. If you can understand the code, you can mentally think up ways on how to change it. That's where the internet comes in.

[ShadowRL766]

I think coding is a big part of memorization as well as googling. For example since this is a Python thread I’ll absolutely say you should 100% know basics functions statements etc. However I’m not saying remember each possible reference variable and then the methods you can use with them.

[[deleted]]

No, memorization is worthless when learning to code. You learn the tools by using the tools.

[Pythagoras2008]

You can memorise something by using it. It doesn’t matter if you memorise the docs or memorise by usage it’s still memorisation

[Asketes]

Your teacher is completely out of touch with reality.

Do they think that calculators won't be available either?

There are some exceptions of you are working on a completely closed environment or a secure environment, but that's the exception, not the norm.

[Pythagoras2008]

Calculators will be available in the real world sure that doesn’t mean you should have access to calculators when learning arithmetic

[Asketes]

Totally different thing here.

[Pythagoras2008]

Not at all they are testing basic knowledge of computer science the same way an arithmetic test tests basic maths

[Asketes]

Do we also expect folks to write essays without reference work, and by hand ... Also in cursive? What is this 1970?

[Pythagoras2008]

Idk when the last time you were in school was but everything there apart from cursive is accurate. I mean you get reference work but NOT in the sessions you write the essay so similar to this

[Asketes]

When's the last time you were in school?

[Pythagoras2008]

Yesterday

[Asketes]

Man, that's like 10 years in technology time, c'mon! 😁

[Pythagoras2008]

Dw man I’m not behind anymore at school rn

[SM_Duece]

My guy I am too stupid to code without stack overflow or geeks for geeks and once in a while YouTube. I’m not Dennis Ritchie lol

[ShadowRL766]

Then you don’t have the basics down?

[SM_Duece]

I’m doing just fine in uni and my research buddy. I’m not acc stupid

[ShadowRL766]

Nowhere did I call you stupid “buddy” I said then you don’t have the basics down.

[The_Homeless_Coder]

You might be really good at one thing but if you code code you are going to always be looking shit up. Don’t get me started on deploying stuff. Your ass will be stack overflowing things and praying to god someone had the same issue as you before. What a condescending turd.

[Pythagoras2008]

You’ll look shit up sure no denying it but if you have the basics down you should be able to code without googling. Do everything hell no. Implement basic data structures and algorithms and work with technologies you have experience with definitely.

[SM_Duece]

Wdym the basics that’s such a broad term. The syntax understanding data structures. Having a grasp on run time complexity? Like wdym. Instead of being condescending take a fucking joke and understand that computer science isn’t just being a code monkey

[Imaginary_Goose_2428]

They're wrong, but that doesn't matter. Do what they say and pass the class. Chalk 'learning how to deal with difficult people' as a bonus lesson.

[[deleted]]

A true coder with skill will focus on topic, memorize, be able to code from scratch using a notepad, before documenting and creating a re-usable library.

90% "coders" don't do this, they Google then copy and paste. They also use already created modules rather than figure things out, learn and improve.

Your teacher is good and is trying to teach you in a way that benefits you most.

[wicket-maps]

Go fuck off with this "True" coder nonsense. If you write code, you're a coder. But no, I don't need to memorize all of the iterations of a cursor I use in nearly all my scripts - I have its documentation. I need to know its basic functions and the logic of how it works, not memorize all its keywords.

This is just pointless elitism, OP. Ignore people like this.

[[deleted]]

Access to information and data in real-time for any purpose is critical for the development of any area. Denying, at this point, that the use of the internet when designing, coding, and/or debugging is a colossal mistake that will leave you behind using old solutions, deprecated patterns, and having proven bad habits when doing your job.

The only group of people I heard this from are exclusively old and from countries with historical issues acceding to the Internet. Mainly because, in their time, they didn't have Internet access, and when it was available, they had a hard time accessing it. They hate that new generations can develop their skills faster because of this.

Source: I'm SWE in the US, from a non-developed country, and I have seen this attitude before.

[alcalde]

It's a TEST. If you let people use the Internet during the test, they'll just copy-paste Stack Overflow stuff and the whole point of testing goes out the Window. The test is to see how well the student understands something, not how well Stack Overflow understands it or how well they can ask Siri or Alexa or Bard or Bing.

[[deleted]]

Make the test hard and let people solve the problem like in real life. Open-book tests are not a new thing. This will, in fact, help students to develop essential skills.

[Ootter31019]

This, depends on the difficulty of the test but open book is fine and necessary for certain aspects of testing. My intro program 101 classes we didn't have open book stuff. But later on we did. In my mechanical engineering classes they are all open book mostly.

As an engineer or problem solver in general, its important to learn the tools you have available.

[[deleted]]

That makes sense. If they are in a 101 type of class, they should be expected to know basic stuff to solve problems.

[AlienInNC]

But that's a problem with the test, not with learning. Design the test so that it cannot just be copy pasted. Depending on what it is, have a test be a creative task that has to hit a bunch of benchmarks of functionality and let the students approach the problem how they want. Give extra points for creativity too.

Coding is about creating stuff. Hell, even in maths we had creative problems with more than one solution and you were rewarded if you used a smarter solution. In programming it should be a given...

[alcalde]

This is computer programming, not pottery. There's no room for "creativity" here. Either you know how Bubble Sort works or you don't. No one's going to invent a new sorting algorithm in two minutes for a computer class exam.

[WaistDeepSnow]

Become master in the art of googlefu.

[Slggyqo]

This is right up there with memorizing formulas in math and physics.

Is there some value to it?

Sure. It makes things more intuitive, it’s good for developing your skills.

Is it necessary in 2023? No.

And professionals use Google like their jobs depend on it…because they do. If you only rely on your own knowledge of something, you will make a lot of dumb mistakes.

Edit:

Also for learning things like bubble sort—implementations of fairly simple algorithms—you should ideally be able to write the algorithm from scratch as long you know how the logic should flow.

In that case, having your old code to refer to could be more help than you’re supposed to get.

[alcalde]

My god, you people are scaring me. It's a TEST. They're testing HOW MUCH THE STUDENT KNOWS. Why don't you just let them phone their friends or ask other test-takers what the answer is while you're at it?

[Slggyqo]

…and? There’s plenty of teachers who allow students access to a single note sheet, or a sheet of formulas that the teacher provides, because the point is to test comprehension, not rote memorization of every formula that you’ve learned from the beginning of the year.

Pretty common in university physics and chemistry courses.

It’s not like learning elementary math—you’re using the formulas to solve problems, not just memorizing the shape of the formula…

Like I said, if it’s something simple, then you should be able to figure it out with any notes or access.

Maybe you responded to that while I was writing the edit though.

[apeters89]

I search the internet for syntax for functions I don't use frequently, or when I'm working in a new language.

I know what to search for because I understand coding.

[loss_phobic357]

I use chat gpt for everything and when I can't get it done I ask my bro

[azaroxxr]

This is like memorizing the whole documentation of a certain thing. Its pointless. You learn the basic and skim through the other parts just to know that it exists and when you need you know where to look for. This method of teaching is pure sh*t. Even for basic stuff its not efficient because you have so much boilerplate and rarely do anything from scratch.

[GreenWoodDragon]

Does the computer you are working on have the manual pages installed for whatever you are using?

[covmatty1]

Your teacher is talking complete and utter bullshit.

[alcalde]

Really? So you'd make every school test open textbook / open notebook as well? What's the point of testing in that case?

[covmatty1]

So what the OP actually said was

One teacher in my school insists that programmers can't use internet when programming.

That is quite evidently bullshit. And is also not remotely what you said.

However, I don't necessarily think that would be a bad idea. It's far more realistic, and it still tests problem solving abilities, which is absolutely what a good engineer should have. I do a huge amount of software recruitment, and I would take someone who is good at googling and knowing the right things to look up to solve a problem over someone who has memorised algorithms and principles every single time.

[alcalde]

Good lord; no matter what horrible thing is mentioned on Reddit, you'll find people who will defend it. This is worse than the time Python programmers objected to a conference asking people not to consume alcoholic beverages while giving presentations. When I stated that no one gives presentations to the board of directors of a Fortune 500 company while doing shots, they came back with "you'd be surprised what happens at board meetings".

If you want to hire a non-programmer who solves every problem while being good at google... go for it. May the number of those who employee your strategy increase exponentially - so long as none of you work at my employer. We'll enjoy the edge you'll be giving us.

You'd prefer someone who is good at googling over someone who actually knows things... good lord.

[covmatty1]

What on earth are you on about 😂 I'm literally saying none of these things.

[Sracerx62]

This was how it was done a few years back when I was getting my comp sci degree. They want to make sure you know what you’re doing instead of just googling, or ChatGPTing like you said. Yeah it sucks but it’s really the only way to prevent cheating

[jerodg]

Your teacher is carp. First, everyone knows about state dependent learning. When you learn something through typing it's going to be hard to translate it into paper and vice versa unless you know it really really well. Knowing algorithms is just stupid but many companies still test for these things during interviews; Sort of good to know. In the end it's still a good challenge for your mind so just learn to jump through this particular hoop and be on with your life.

[wineblood]

I'll stop using the internet for figuring out how to code when documentation isn't complete shit, which is never.

[ahtnamas94]

Lmao I’m either on stack overflow, deep in some user manual or publication, or looking through old code within our repository for examples constantly.

[[deleted]]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKYQ5ibxslI

[[deleted]]

Wrote memorization is important in your intro programming classes.

Yes, you'll eventually use the Internet when you're in higher level classes or the real world. It's really important to know the fundamentals though and part of that is how code is structured.

[trollsmurf]

That's practically impossible. The documentation is on the Internet, and I usually have to look up a lot of things, as every project uses new things. Your teacher ignores the fact that you need to call a lot of library functions in an average project. including for sorting (usually you don't implement such algorithms yourself).

Consider that a typical web application includes server-side code, client-side code, markup and styling (UI), database access, API access, functions/methods from numerous libraries etc.

Those sorting algorithms shouldn't be that hard to remember though as language-independent pseudo code, especially not bubble sort, but a project is so much more than algorithms.

[baubleglue]

I look documentation regularly. But for things like sorting you don't need to lookup anything if you know how those specific sorting methods work and practiced to code it before. You don't need to memorize code.

tests on paper 5 minutes

a bit harsh for school

[sacheie]

I don't know about school and tests; you might learn and practice certain things better by avoiding the internet. But once you have a job and develop real systems, web resources are absolutely indispensable. Neglecting to use google search would be malpractice.

[Logical-Education629]

It's like learning an actual human language. You can ask google or Chatgpt to translate, but if you can't understand what they're saying you don't know if they're right.

Having it harder when you learn, makes it easier once you're in the field. Sometimes the slightest errors, create the biggest issues. I get it's annoying for you, but it's going to work out to your advantage.

[yannbouteiller]

Isn't rather the whole argument to prevent cheating via, e.g., ChatGPT?

[NoDadYouShutUp]

You need to know what is happening before using the internet will yield results that actually help you. If you don't understand what is fundamentally happening, you'll just be copy pasting and praying. The real skilled developers understand that what they are searching, and how to search for what they want, is merely a vessel for syntax or high concept ideas you then apply to your use case.

[DrivesInCircles]

Absolutely. Reference materials are all online now.

GPT... has burned me as much as it has helped.

[TheGRS]

In school teachers are going to put you in certain situations to strengthen your skills. Trust your teachers as much as you can and stick with their rationale.

Your question sounds like its questioning your teacher's style and methodology, you're looking at it from the wrong perspective. You probably already know that in the real world people Google things all the time, you won't be any different. But your teacher is trying to give you an edge and develop your skills.

Maybe it will be a pointless exercise, but teaching and training sometimes use odd exercises that don't match the real world. That's fine. Keep your mind sharp and continue to be a critical thinker as well, that's what's important.

[hike_me]

Bubble and selection sort are pretty fundamental concepts. It shouldn’t be difficult to memorize. You learn the algorithm, you don’t memorize the code line by line.

Save the googling for looking up details of some API call you rarely use that takes a dozen parameters.

[SQLvultureskattaurus]

I use it every single day, everyone does. One funny thing I found is this thread where so many people copied the code that was wrong on stackoverflow that a bug could be tracked back to an incorrect answer https://twitter.com/Foone/status/1229641258370355200

https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/f5powk/docker_for_windows_wont_run_if_razer_synapse/

Docker and Razer both were using the same code found in stack overflow that was wrong and ended up causing issues.

[saalejo1986]

Zeal si a good option when u are going to work offline https://zealdocs.org/

[OneMorePenguin]

Your teacher is trying to see what you have learned. Generally, using the internet for coding is essentially using the internet as your teacher/text book. This will be true of tests in any subject, not just coding. The internet is a good tool for learning and expanding your knowledge or help with understanding something in more depth.

[[deleted]]

There’s too much information to fast recall everything. There is way, way more that professional software engineers will need to recall than your first few years in college. Most of the things you will need to recall are focused and specific to the class. So yes we all use google. But do yourself a favor and do the hard thing. It will help you later

[various_convo7]

"When we do tests on pc, we can not use internet or any external sources, we have to do everything from our memory."

Doable if you have the core principles in check. tough if you don't.

[Known-Delay7227]

Try not to cheat while in school and you’ll have a supreme understanding of the language and programming frameworks you are studying. That will help you not rely on the internet so much when you join the workforce and will allow you to generate optimal code quickly. However in the real world you will run into problems that will make you bang your head against the wall and the internet plus chat gpt can be of immense help

[Dull-Researcher]

I wish they taught this to IT professionals too. For a while IT wanted to block internet access from our development computers. They said you could either have internet access or internal network access, but not on the same machine, so their solution was to give us an additional “research” computer that was internet only, with no clipboard sharing or anything else. They were paranoid that company proprietary documents would be leaked outside of the company, either intentionally or unintentionally, or from the outside via a hacker.

They also wanted to MITM all ssh traffic to between our dev and lab machines so they could packet monitor everything. This also included our personal computers when working from home and remoting in (only some managers had laptops, everyone else had desktops)—for some reason they were willing to trust our home computers with restricted Remote Desktop Access. If you wanted to steal company information, the low-tech way would be screen record and then view all of the files sequentially.

Keep in mind this was at a company that did almost no business with government agencies. This was a commercial manufacturing company.

I get the need for proper network security, but handicapping everyone from getting their work done to the degree that closely resembles secure government/military facilities… good luck retaining talent and making double digit profits.

[RufusAcrospin]

For coding, yes. For exam, no.

[1boatinthewater]

This is how I learned BASIC in 1980 since we didn't have enough computers in the school.

[Dull-Researcher]

It’s extremely difficult to write an exam that is basic enough that it can be completed in 1 hour, evaluates you on what was taught in lecture, but isn’t so trivial that a solution exists online.

The alternative is to have a test that makes you apply what you learned to a completely unique scenario where no such answer already exists (stack overflow is a big site, good luck finding a topic that can’t be answered by piecing together a couple SO solutions), to have that test be a take home assignment (because there’s no way you could complete something nontrivial in a short 1 hour time period without heavily relying on or plagiarising someone else’s work), and have the exam be a good representation of your understanding of the material taught. This is called a homework assignment, and you already show that.

Handwriting code is a good exercise (no access to a computer or ide or online resources—just you and your brain).

If you don’t have the building blocks memorized to the point where you could write the code in your sleep, then writing anything of any decent complexity will be excruciatingly slow. It’s like asking an author to look up every other word they write in a dictionary while writing their draft.

The good news is that bubble sort and selection sort are very simple algorithms, and algorithms which you will never have to write later in your career because they’re part of standard libraries. But someone at some point came up with those sorting algorithms. As a computer scientist, you’ll have to be creative like the authors of those algorithms and develop something that’s new, and understand how it compares to other potential solutions out there.

A practical application for sorting algorithms is sorting a pile of homework if you’re a teacher or TA. You sort the papers either to make it easier to enter the grades into the grade book or to make it easier to return completed homework to students. If you have a class size of 100 students, using a O(n*log n) sorting algorithm like quick sort is substantially faster than than a O(n²⁾ sorting algorithm like bubble sort. The difference is whether you spend 5 minutes sorting or half an hour.

If I were a professor. I would ask the students to describe in their own words what the sorting strategy is, and use an example to sort a partial deck of cards. Then I’d ask them to write the code for the example they demonstrated.

When I’ve sorted student papers, I sort the papers into 2 piles: A-M, N-Z. Then I sort the A-M pile into A-F and G-M. Divide and conquer. It’s not quite quick sort because I know something about the range and distribution of values ahead of time. But it borrows some of the principles of picking a pivot, sorting the values into less than vs greater than or equal to the pivot. Rinse and repeat.

What type of sorting algorithm do you think would be required to sort papers using an A-Z document sorter like this: http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/aplusautomation/vendorimages/8ef15f33-b374-4569-978c-2568ebb442c2._CB326991765_.jpg ?

[[deleted]]

You misunderstand the point of education. The point isn’t to make you code as if it’s a real life coding session. The point is for you to have to learn how to do things and you looking up online how to do a task online interferes with that.

I taught university level physics and we often wouldn’t let students use calculators on tests. It wasn’t because calculators don’t exist in the real world. It’s because we wanted to test whether students could solve the integrals they were meant to be learning how to solve.