I think software development would be immensely difficult if there were no internet and you would have to search everything in a physical library whilst left to your intellectual wit. That would require great skills.

I used to do it like that back in 1994, but of course now I don't have the time for that unless it would be on a hobby project.

Comparatively, certainly. It was hard even back then.

I remembered whole language reference and all libraries I was using back in 2009 before I got my first job.

It was way easier to impress someone back then when you know all attributes and methods of every class.

I think because of that also code quality was better.

Its incredibly difficult to make a decent app in limited time without use of autocomplete. But as much as we rely on computer cells for remembering stuff and not our brains' , one has to give technology its deserving credits.

If devs today had to dwelve into books continuously and memorize every syntax/attributes, we would be still working on turbo C's blue screens for everything

I think all the books for my tech stack are in museums..or decayed.. o.O

Devs have learnt to rely on the internet way too much imho, especially since Stackoverflow.

I used to be rather speedy at flicking through reference manuals, and when I initially started Java development the local "javadoc" html was way quicker and easier than trying to find some tangentially related online resource.

The internet is a wonderful thing, but it's certainly allowed Devs to be a lot lazier (and arguably less qualified.)

Perhaps shitty devs can keep up a little bit better these days by searching for stuff on the internet. On the other hand, it allows smart developers to be 10x more productive. So I don't really see the problem in this at all.

If you're worried about code quality, do code reviews. If you can't find smelly parts in a junior developers code then chances are that you're not as good as you would like to tell yourself.

And if time is a constraint for code reviews then I don't even wanna know what your current self would think about trying to read reference manuals.

no point in this remark i think.

It would be the same as saying:

There were no calculators before, people computed on paper and it took more time therfore they were better at computing.

Yes some people optimized and became better at doing calculations on paper because it took more time otherwise. This doesn't mean they were better at algebra, maybe faster than those who didn't optimize back then though. Certainly not faster than a time traveler with a calculator.

Just as someone, who learned to code without internet, spent time to optimize by remembering everything in order to avoid spending the time fetching and reading books.

Today, people optimze by increasing their ability to search and evaluate potential solutions through a jungle of shit solutions.

Anyway, the thing is:

the tools you have increase your productivity and therefore increase the expectations people have over your work output capacity.

@sladuled o.o

@AlmondSauce Yes, I use the Javadocs as well.