

Nick Carr: It's not what you know - yarapavan
http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2010/01/its_not_what_yo.php

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chriseppstein
I'm reminded of folks who use IDEs that "help" them remember APIs via
autocomplete dropdowns. It speeds them up initially but eventually leaves them
completely dependent on their tool and incapable of writing code on their own.
External knowledge is good, but internalizing that knowledge that you use
regularly is even more important and will make you a better person.

~~~
seldo
It is an intellectual trap to believe that just because a skill you worked
hard to achieve is no longer necessary, you are a "better person" than those
who no longer need that skill.

Can you use a slide rule? I bet you can't. But when pocket calculators were
invented engineers were scornful of a new generation who could only punch in
numbers. Can you write in assembly? Probably not, but when higher-level
languages first turned up you weren't considered a "real" programmer unless
you could hack assembly -- and then again when Java overtook C, and then again
when interpreted languages like PHP overtook Java.

Why does having memorized an API make you better than somebody who uses a tool
that makes memorizing the API unnecessary? Unless you can show that one makes
you demonstrably more efficient, it's immaterial.

------
tmsh
I enjoyed the post. But I'd challenge anyone to google for the Paris Review
interview between Frost and Poirier.

Frost was interested in James' old, difficult Harvard veritas and all that --
for about five minutes. Although he had a bit of a deeper classical training
than he lets on in the article. Still, Frost's idea of truth is much more
temporal and ad-hoc ('performance' being his big thing -- though this is a
somewhat limited reading, if you ask me -- unless you take the idea of
performance very, very seriously). I think he'd have encouraged evolutions of
ways of thinking as long as they were original. As long as they struck you
('performed') originally.

------
yannis
_When Mayer says her "mind has evolved" to the point that it can only
recognize and process information that has been digitized and uploaded_

Is it possible that too much Googling has led to parts of Mayer's brain to
atrophy?

~~~
RyanMcGreal
It's more likely that too much waxing rhetorical has led parts of Mayer's
dopamine system to overproduce. :)

Actually, I've given this some thought. Here's a related essay from last
summer: <http://raisethehammer.org/blog/1486/>

~~~
yannis
Thanks Ryan, your essay is very interesting. I like this:

We ARE "losing something important" by training our brains to act as indices
(or creating personal habits, as you suggest) instead of the libraries
themselves.

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F_J_H
For some reason, this reminded me of a T.S Eliot quote:

    
    
      We shall not cease from exploration
      And the end of all our exploring
      Will be to arrive where we started
      And know the place for the first time.
    

The funny thing is, I vaguely remembered the quote. I had to Google it...

------
ypk
Essentially quotes Google's Marissa Mayer from her edge.org annual question on
internet- "It's not what you know, it's what you can find out."

~~~
jeremyw
No, he's rejecting that thinking.

 _It's not what you can find out, Frost and James and Poirier told us; it's
what you know._

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j_baker
I emphatically disagree with his standpoint, but I voted it up because it's a
reasoned write-up of his belief.

