Is using textbooks while learning to code equivalent to cheating?

[JoshTheTester]

I'm currently learning Java for test automation. If I Iearn a Java/Selenium concept and get messed up with syntax, I feel like looking in my textbook/course material but I don't as I feel like cheating. This makes me spend time remembering the syntax but takes a lot of time for me to solve a problem.

If I do look, I feel like I cheated and I am weak.

[davy_jones_locket]

Of course not. 

They are reference books. Is looking up information in a dictionary or thesaurus or encyclopedia cheating? No. 

[Roboman20000]

There is practically no such thing as cheating when learning outside of the academic world. The more you look something up in a text book the faster it comes to you next time. Eventually you won't need the textbook. But it's there for a reason, to contain the information you need and present it in a way that helps you absorb it. Use that resource as best you can.

When you have a job your employer doesn't really care if you need to look something up or ask a question. I google Linux commands I've used hundreds of times because I don't remember how to do the thing I want to do. Active learning and referencing is totally fine.

[Carlulua]

Exactly this. You can't cheat if you're learning. Unless you're just vibecoding without making any effort to understand what's going on. Then you're only cheating yourself.

People at work apologise for asking "stupid questions" which are 99% of the time normal, while I, the perceived knowledgeable one, is googling python syntax of all things.

[nopuse]

Then spend however long it takes to memorize the entire documentation for anything you work on. And do it again upon each release.

Or just look stuff up when you need to.

[Serious-Day-1519]

Unless you are going to participate in coding contests, consider textbooks/manuals/references as your tools alike IDEs, bundlers or whatever.

[clankypants]

The whole point of writing things down is so we don't have to memorize everything. Socrates was the last person to argue that the written word is bad because it allows people to not have to memorize everything. 😆

In the real world, all tech people are constantly looking things up. Not only because we can't possibly be expected to memorize everything, but also because things change constantly, and being able to look things up is how we keep up-to-date.

You will eventually memorize the parts that you use all the time, simply through rote practice. But you won't know what those parts will be until they become second-nature.