Overheard a senior dev say she still looks up basic syntax on Google every day

That made me feel way less stupid about needing to check how to write a for loop for the third time this week, has anyone else felt that imposter syndrome fade after hearing pros admit the same?

4 comments

4 Comments

pat7814d ago

Got a buddy who's been doing backend stuff for like twelve years now. He was helping me with some Python thing last month and straight up said "hang on, I gotta Google how to catch exceptions in this version" right in front of me. Made me feel a lot better about looking up how to declare a string variable twice before lunch.

irisowens4d ago

@davidkim you're missing something though. Knowing where to look it up is a skill too. Being senior means you know what you don't know and you know how to find it fast. It's not about memorizing every syntax rule. Same way a mechanic doesn't memorize every torque spec for every car they've ever worked on. They know where the manual is and how to read it quickly. Ten years experience means you've built enough stuff that you know the patterns, not that you have every line of code in your head.

davidkim4d ago

But doesn't looking up basic stuff every day kinda mean the "10 years experience" on your resume is just a measure of how many times you've googled the same thing over and over again... I mean, if you're a senior dev and still need to check how to write a loop, what exactly is senior about that?

sean_green444d ago

Wait, davidkim actually thinks knowing syntax by heart equals seniority? That's wild, I used to think that way too before I realized even the devs who wrote the language specs probably google half their code.